Misogyny, Guns, Rape and Culture..

And here I thought we weren't going to talk.

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A sad result for a grey Thursday.

I make the decision based on an undeific morality, which in the eyes of Tiassa - off and on - is non-existant, or at least unrooted. It's amusing to watch you dance around when someone spears your major domo for doing the very kind of thing he pretends to abhor, sometimes - or at the least blows up and narrates for effect, as he did with me. So it's not much good whining about being held to an actual standard that you interpret liberally as befits your own prejudices. Sowwy. Need a hanky?

Interesting. Because, you see, when I criticize Islamic law that allows hatred and misogyny that's somehow 'bigoted', but when you make actually vapid connections without any kind of mitigating conceptualisation - or at least language - that's somehow not. Would you care to explain yourself?

It's more how it was used - without refinement, without that nuance that you pay lip service to but can never quiiiite seem to locate yourselves. Biscuit? No good hangwringing about 'warped' priorities either, dude: you and Tiassa presumably have access to the same language I use, so there's really no excuse for it.

I wish you joy of your mirror dialogue, however.

 

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Well, to play devils advocate... when you look at it from the angle that his intent was (most likely) to goad/bait you into replying and generally cause you distress, his "priorities" are exactly where they should be.

Morally speaking, it was disgusting... disgusting, but effective.

 

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An interesting point to consider is why do women want all the thing men have and do, but men aren't trying as hard to be like women? Men being more like women is being forced on men, and is not their first choice. One does not hear men saying, I want to be more like the women and we need laws to force this to happen.

Women have this obsession about copying the traditions of the men, like they are missing something, if they don't follow the boys. There is a difference, in the way the mind works.

We don't talk about male rights, as much as women's rights, because one is the natural follower and the other is the natural leader. If we pushed for male rights, the female fear is they will fall further behind. They prefer the men be slowed down with legal and social handicaps.

Religions used common sense to see this and figured out how to optimize both to their true natures. They don't lie to the women and tell them what they want to hear like they get with liberalism. If a women asks in she looks fat in that dress, truth may not be the honest man's best friend. Liberals lie better and tend to be acceptable to the females. Oh dear you look the best I have even seen you in that dress, or you should exercise more to firm up? The church will be honest while liberalism is about smiling to the face and gossiping behind the back.

The story of Adam and Eve has Eve listening to a con artist snake instead of her mate, Adam. The snake told her what she wanted to her. If you eat the apple you will be skinny and smart like God. This was not true but made her feel good. Religion traditions says she would have been better off listening to one who loves her instead of a con artist who is looking out for himself. Eve followed a male one way or another but chose the con artist and both got screwed. More women and childen live in poverty since modern eve chose the liberal snake.

 

Citation needed.
Otherwise it's safe to assume that, as with so many (all?) of your other, equally flat, assertions, you're talking bollocks.

 

Most women don't want all the things men have and don't want to do all the things men do. They just want the same rights to do so - if they choose.

Most women aren't trying hard to be men, just as most men aren't trying hard to be women.

Nor do you hear most women say "I want to be more like a man." They just want the same rights as a man.

Are you bitter because you can't get women to follow your command?

 

Why, I had no idea you owned this thread! Is this your excuse for breaking the agreement?

The case is naturally reprehensible to the point that it requires no comment. You're not honestly and genuinely stupid enough to be confused about my opinion on the matter. So the issue remaining is the blanket statement: there is room enough in the English language, whether you are cognisant of it or not, to criticise eventuality or incidence, whatever its moral or philosophical foundation, without such generalisation - or more specifically in this instance, without such assassination of assertion. Again, I'd thought - given the outrageous attacks I've experienced for scarcely approaching such a line - that our moral directors would refrain more completely, pour discourager les autres (si je peux direr). As I've said, in that context there's no excuse tenderable for such defamation.

This is precisely the issue here again, though reflected in a mirror dissant: the record's quite clear that I don't do any of that. My position regards the views of those in such elements as seek to appropriate our moral goods and beliefs to something a bit more medieval, which you typically end up defending in that way that you do. Yet here we have direct defamation, not even mitigated by language. I don't expect you to understand it, but it does deserve mention in the context of the wider discussion. Maybe you could stay on topic instead of trying to attribute new dialogue to a conversation you've barely made traction on thus far.

I'm not sure which is the more embarrassing here: your inept handling of the concept of "Devil's Advocate", or your fill-in-the-blank approach to the discussion. I suppose you could elaborate. Perhaps you might start with how I forced her to respond, or how that would cause her distress, when my comments were directed at Tiassa. Perhaps, up there in the magic sky, all the mods have become accidentally glued together, or something. Talk about pursuing a providential victimhood - now, you're so desperate for someone to play with, you're not even playing with your own victimhood.

 

It lives!

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Welcome back.

The motivation to just give up and follow is simple: the human psyche likes it. The anxiety of outcome is stultifyingly sometimes. A few choices are fine, but that sliding scale of all possible selections involved with the intricacies of choice and result is actually paralyzing for some people. For example, I just spelled "paralysing" the American way, and why not? We're all following one herd or another. I'm not to play Devil's Advocate here (witta Kitta should pay attention to this example) but one is tempted to wonder for a moment what the difference would be in the sacrifice of liberties to the id, if only on a temporary basis and under the ultimate guidance of the super-ego at whatever point it decides to speak up.

Of course, that's ultimately bullshit, but whatever.

 

Well, Bells is the original poster... so there is that.

I fail to see how or where I've ever played up any kind of "victimhood"... in fact...

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As for Defamation... it is only defamation when it is untrue... unfortunately, GeoffP, I've born witness to your selective memory one too many times...

As for how you "forced her" to respond... its simple really... who here would actually allow a false attack against their person go unchallenged?

 

If so, I have diligently ignored you since then, while you have at least twice replied to comments I've made that had not a thing to do with you. Kitta, above, seems concerned about your state: I hope discussion won't contribute to some kind of undue mental immolation.

Well, I know you'll make whatever artful pretensions you require at a given moment - some of them could be found in the sentence you wrote; i.e. "you do appear to be the type to fully support the Church and Ireland's laws and what they did to this girl" - so in a funny functional sort of way, that might actually be true. Should I say that I'm certainly on the side of the victim here? I could. You might even read it. Let's do that and just hope for the best.

I've never seen anyone try to redefine bigotry as only being bigotry if one belongs to the group under attack. I would ask where you found such a... perspective, but in fact I'm probably better off not getting into it. You're not an Irish woman either, are you? If not, how were you affected by this case? Pray tell, what does it have to do with you, exactly? (see below)

?? Just a moment: I thought you said above that I was "one of those kind of Catholics", but now you seem to think I'm not. Let alone my considerations on theology, I don't think you even know what straw man to attack. Should I hold one up for you? Would me explaining that I was agnostic help your ad hominem in some way?

We could get into this digression in more detail - why this issue has anything to do with you, or why you're pretending that Tiassa was talking about Ireland being Catholic rather than him identifying "misogynist" with "Catholic", but I don't think you could get traction with those concepts either. Is there a proper website for anti-Catholic bigots? It just seems out of place here... well, depending on the speaker, I guess. Anyway, I'm not personally injured by the kind of bigotry that seems to be getting a pass here, but I do find it objectionable (besides being against site rules), and so I'm compelled to comment.

Okay, I'll drop this latest violation off with the admins. Thanks for the suggestion.

That is a perfectly ordinary English phrase.

So "misogyny" is "Catholic", then, is it? Hmm.

I wonder how you think your wildly askew impression of my personality excuses the loose language above. Strange. Could you explain?

 

Strange Times

(sigh)

You know, I sometimes joke that it's scary when I find myself agreeing with Rush Limbaugh, or Pat Buchanan. It's happened at least once with each. Buchanan actually chose policy over party and criticized something having to do with the Bush war policy, and it wasn't so bad, though virtually any dissenting voice could start with a handful of easily accessible facts about the war and sound pretty damn reasonable. To the one, it was a safe position. To the other, at least he still took it. With Limbaugh, it's just that we both would prefer the old Red/Blue designations. You know, at least there's that.

Richard Dawkins is someone I share considerably more policy agreements with, but he and I differ greatly in our approach to other fundamental questions.

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(via Irish Independent)​

Jenn Selby of the Irish Independent complained that, subsequently, "his ethical values appeared to come a little unstuck" as he responded to a question about Down's Syndrome. Perhaps it is simpler to say that following his tweet about the Church, the discussion seems to have gone downhill. I get his ethical argument, but must dissent on the basis of empirical observation of human beings with Down's Syndrome achieving a reasonable assertion of satisfying quality of life. So ... right. No.

To the one, Selby seems anxious to twist the knife. To the other, well, right. It's Richard Dawkins. Even setting aside the question of atheism, he says enough things pertaining to decisions women are obliged to make about the events and conditions of and within their own bodies that cause shivers to run the spines of many women that Selby has every reason to pile on.

And yet, in the end, it would seem a diverse range of outlooks can concur regarding the extraordinary influence Catholic doctrine and belief wields in Irish society.

The thing is that even Catholics know this is a Catholic outcome. That's why Irish Catholics are appalled. This isn't how it's supposed to go, but Jesus, Mary and Joseph this is what they made.

Irish Catholics aren't going to simply abandon Catholicism. As much as we might loathe talk of renewals of faith—a cliché in my corner of the Universe—what happens when Catholicism appalls Irish Catholics is that they try to redefine their comprehension of Catholic doctrine. The Fifth Amendment to the Bhunreacht, 1973, struck the specific elevation of the Church, and enumerated more denominations. The People took that back by a ridiculous margin. The Eighth Amendment passed by a considerable margin, and further entrenched the Constitutional prohibitions against abortion; this was not the result of a Hindu ethic dominating the discussion, nor a Marxist, nor a Freudian, nor Machiavellian, Muslim, Judaic, Protestant, Reform, atheist, Kantian, Hegelian, or otherwise.

And the pattern is clear. The Eighth Amendment was flawed, according to its opponents, because it allowed abortion in cases endangering the life of the mother; this fear came to pass in their eyes when the Supreme Court ruled in Attorney General v. X, to allow a fourteen year-old rape survivor access to abortion services. The ruling came in March, 1992. X miscarried after the judgment and before undergoing the termination procedure.

Eight months later, the government put before the people the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, in order to make sure no fourteen year-old rape survivor in X's position would ever again be granted abortion access.

By a landslide, the people took this back from their government. Over sixty-five percent of votes cast said no. On that day they also took back other potential state powers, including a specific issue of censorship, and the power to ban pregnant women from traveling abroad.

This was part of a huge struggle. The question wasn't whether abortion should be legal, but how do you answer God.

A six-tenths margin removed the constitutional prohibition of divorce in 1995.

In 2002, they tried the Twelfth again, this time as the Twenty-Fifth. Voters said no by an eight-tenths margin.

It's twenty-two years later, and they are still wrangling over X. The current controversy arises under a 2013 act intended to deal with the damage the nation's abortion laws cause women, an issue forced by the death of Savita Halappanavar.

While Justice O'Flaherty attempted to claim the majority he sided with in X was moot in the controversy following Halappanavar's death, the fact is that because of the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, Ireland now finds itself embroiled in the current controversy, which in turn leads straight back to X.

Now, all of this, in a policy context, still responds to Catholicism. The Act includes the transformation of conception to the medical definition, implantation (cf., Murray). As opposed to fertilization. Life At Conception Personhood, not Fertilization-Assigned Personhood. This difference was wrested from the Catechismal outlook that consequently demands FAP[sup]†[/sup], just as divorce laws and religious supremacy were wrested from the official Catholic outlook.

And, indeed, the religious supremacy is an important point. De Valera and his fellows wrestled with that question, namely because of the glaringly obvious point. They fended off official state religion because it would seem particularly indecorous and, perhaps more importantly, self-defeating, to fight a bitter war against religious supremacism only to declare a new religious supremacism. And while the war had not yet come to the British settlers in the Americas, it should be sufficient to say that this was Ireland of the twentieth century, not Maryland of the seventeenth. British Protestants sent a clear message to echo through the centuries when they used a religious tolerance act in the Catholic colony, one that respected all trinitarian Christianity to usurp power and institute religious restrictions and suppress Catholic influence in government, favoring Cromwell's Protestant outlook instead. By 1702, Maryland established an official religion, the Church of England, and included offenses such as having one's tongue bored and a fine of twenty pounds, for starters, if one should somehow insult the Trinity. You know, by, say, being Jewish. Or Unitarian. Or ... yeah. And believe it or not, the fight between all sorts of Christians and Unitarianism does indeed center on Nicaea.

The point being that the Irish are smart enough to figure out why to not go with an official religion. And it is true, also, that Irish Catholicism does not come from a triumphal, oppressive heritage such as prior centuries saw in Rome. The current Irish Catholic experience arises from a couple of centuries spent being the ones with their tongues figuratively bored, and much worse literally visited upon their persons for the fact of their beliefs.

They can find a way to reconcile with necessity. The Holy Mother weeps at the state of things: If You test them, forgive them when they fail. You forgave Your Son, who asked to turn His back on everyone in the world. You needed Him to ask. And these are humans, and they will fail.

Hail Mary, full of grace; Our Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.​

And if you believe, then you believe she will. We are human; we are supposed to fail to meet God's expectations. By Catholic doctrine, this is not only inevitable, it is inherent.

Nor can one argue with anything but doctrinal faith that abortion itself isn't part of God's Will any more than Sin itself.

The task is impossible. God will forgive. Or else, well, it turns out they don't really believe all this stuff, and perhaps it's time to start crafting the laws around reality.

And this is the day the Lord hath made; we should rejoice and be glad in it.

Yet, people are appalled. They are in the streets.

This is a Catholic outcome. That is why Irish Catholics are appalled. And at some point, they will have watched one too many lambs sacrificed at the altar of demonstrating piety for the sake of others to witness, and they will say, "Enough."

But to get there, they have to figure out how that works within the structure, or else stop being Catholic. Call your bookies; I can't tell you which will come sooner.

Matthew 25? It is an impossible task. What can you do for which sick stranger? Either way, in these cases, one fails.

But the Irish Catholics are not going to abandon Catholicism. They're just trying to figure out how it works, and for now the outlook is grim. This is gonna take a while.
____________________

Notes:

[sup]†[/sup] cf., III.2.ii(5.2270-2275); while the text repeatedly says conception, this is defined as "the first moment of his existence". Cardinal Ratzinger, in 1987, issued the Church's Instruction on Respect for Human Life:

At the Second Vatican Council, the Church for her part presented once again to modern man her constant and certain doctrine according to which: "Life once conceived, must be protected with the utmost care; abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes". More recently, the Charter of the Rights of the Family, published by the Holy See, confirmed that "Human life must be absolutely respected and protected from the moment of conception".

This Congregation is aware of the current debates concerning the beginning of human life, concerning the individuality of the human being and concerning the identity of the human person. The Congregation recalls the teachings found in the Declaration on Procured Abortion: "From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a new life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already. To this perpetual evidence ... modern genetic science brings valuable confirmation. It has demonstrated that, from the first instant, the programme is fixed as to what this living being will be: a man, this individual-man with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its great capacities requires time ... to find its place and to be in a position to act". This teaching remains valid and is further confirmed, if confirmation were needed, by recent findings of human biological science which recognize that in the zygote* resulting from fertilization the biological identity of a new human individual is already constituted. Certainly no experimental datum can be in itself sufficient to bring us to the recognition of a spiritual soul; nevertheless, the conclusions of science regarding the human embryo provide a valuable indication for discerning by the use of reason a personal presence at the moment of this first appearance of a human life: how could a human individual not be a human person? The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable.

Thus the fruit of human generation, from the first moment of its existence, that is to say from the moment the zygote has formed, demands the unconditional respect that is morally due to the human being in his bodily and spiritual totality. The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life. This doctrinal reminder provides the fundamental criterion for the solution of the various problems posed by the development of the biomedical sciences in this field: since the embryo must be treated as a person, it must also be defended in its integrity, tended and cared for, to the extent possible, in the same way as any other human being as far as medical assistance is concerned.

* The zygote is the cell produced when the nuclei of the two gametes have fused.​

Works Cited:

Selby, Jenn. "Ireland is a civilised country except in this 1 area". Irish Independent. August 20, 2014. Independent.ie. August 21, 2014. http://www.independent.ie/world-new...country-except-in-this-one-area-30526014.html

Murray, C. J. Roche v. Roche. Supreme Court of Ireland. December 15, 2009. Bailii.org. http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IESC/2009/S82.html

Weigle, Luther, et al. The Bible: Revised Standard Version. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1971. University of Michigan. August 21, 2014. http://quod.lib.umich.edu/r/rsv/

Catechism of the Catholic Church. 2013. Vatican.va. August 21, 2014. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM

Ratzinger, John Cardinal. Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. February 22, 1987. Vatican.va. August 21, 2014. http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/c...h_doc_19870222_respect-for-human-life_en.html

 

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You seem confused on the correlation being made here... if this is honest confusion, and not just an attempted ploy to cause the drama you seem to thrive off of, then it would explain a lot. After all, if you can't follow such a simple thought, it is no wonder you take offense when people call you out for your actions. I would say one track mind... but this is more akin to an N Gauge line...

Simple - I've given up with the niceties and pandering, and will simply call things as I see them... so if you don't wish to be called an asshole, don't act like an asshole.

Myself? I know I'm an asshole...

 

What I would like to see would be a social polarization into male and female, instead into rich and poor, black and white, atheist and religious. This is old school and works the best, because even if polarized, male and female have a way of getting close to each other, like all the other polarizations can't. Men and women can argue, and be mars and venus, but they can also make up in be in love. Try that with atheists and religious.

Based on this unique social polarization, the men would now learn to be men, from other men, while women would learn to be women, from other women. Women have never really defined what a women is, but rely on the men to set their traditions and fads. It is always equal rights which mean carbon copy.

I would also use the natural roles of male and female but extrapolate to these to the national social scales. For example, women are traditionally the nurturers thereby putting them in charge of child care, medicine, farming and food, etc, all the way to the highest levels of government. One job of the women is to make sure the national family is fed and healthy, like they would do for the own family. The male is the hunter and defender so he is in charge of research, innovation and military, sort of like it already is.

The current trend of women acting like men and men like women and/or men defining women and women defying men leads to the discontent associated with not being in balance with respect to one's natural nature.

Rape has a connection to feminism. Masculine men, such as conservatives that are accused of misogyny, tend to be harder against crime. Feminized men, like liberals tend to be softer and have compassion even for ax murderers. Pure men would solve the problem of rape, while feminized men tend to perpetuate the problem because they are too wishy washy with respect to black and white. The social polarization of men and women, with men in charge of men, in terms of punishment, would eliminate this problem much faster.

 

What about men who don't want to or can't be "manly"? I, myself, would likely be included in that - I'm neither ashamed, nor afraid, of my emotions and, while I'm able to reign them in when needed, I am not concerned about letting them show. Case in point, music - there are several songs that reduce me to tears in short order, in large part because of how much they bring back memories of my Grandfather.

In today's view... that's "not masculine" and I'm a "pussy for crying"... to hell with that notion.

 

Exactly. By polarizing men and women into two completely separate categories, and placing them back in their natural roles, the problem would be eliminated, as it was 100 years ago. Once you remove a women's right to lead her family and herself, then there is no rape. Her husband can do whatever he likes to her, since he is her leader, and decides what is best for her. The term "rape" would become meaningless; there would just be sex.

Of course you might still have the problem of someone who was not her husband having sex with her. You could perhaps change that crime to "unauthorized use of another man's property."