[Vision2020] Why doesn't the Sisterhood learn to shoot?
Mark Rounds
ltrwritr@moscow.com
Mon, 24 Feb 2003 09:59:28 -0800 (PST)
To quote a favorite author of mine, "sure the game is rigged, but if you
don't play, you can't win." Seems very appropriate here.
Mark Rounds
At 06:21 AM 2/24/2003 -0800, Don Kaag wrote:
>Ted:
>
>"improvise, adapt, overcome".
>
>Don Kaag
>
>On Sunday, February 23, 2003, at 11:51 PM, Ted Moffett wrote:
>
>>
>> Don:
>>
>> While I can see where you are coming from and agree with much of what
>> you say, I think there is a contradiction in your worldview that you
>> do not recognize. To be brief, you do believe that force can make a
>> person, or a government, conform to the agenda of the agency applying
>> the force, do you not? As a former military man who recognizes the
>> necessity and efficacy of the use of force, I do not see how you can
>> but agree with what I just wrote. Therefore, does it not follow that
>> no matter what forces a self determining mature adult person musters,
>> superior force can defeat them? Therefore it also follows that a
>> women who faces a man willing to inflict enough pain and suffering can
>> bring such a women to defeat, and if said man is clever enough, he can
>> use methods that will bring the likelihood of his being stopped by
>> whomever, the police, friends of the women, social services etc.
>> rather unlikely. Consider a man who threatens to kill the women's
>> children, or track the women down and kill her, wherever she goes, if
>> she turns the man into the police, even if he has to wait out a prison
>> term before he carries out his revenge.
>>
>> You may think these examples are extreme and rare, but they do exist
>> far more often than they should, and make my point, which is in
>> contradiction to your rather peculiar claim that women should not
>> "complain," because they are the ones turning themselves into victims.
>> Get real, will you! People can be victimized against their will when
>> they are very motivated to not let it happen.
>>
>> Let's launch a campaign of zero tolerance against brutal men
>> who abuse women! Then we would see men "complain" about women's
>> rights being out of control, which is the attitude many men take > today.
>>
>> I hear you complaining about women who are just trying to gain
>> attention to a very serious social problem. What is the problem in
>> trying to raise the issue of violence against women and the damage it
>> does? If you are serious in your statements and are not just
>> disputing various points for the sake of a good argument, etc. I
>> wonder why you are complaining about this?
>>
>> Your insistence on total self determination for adults does not fit
>> the facts of human life, psychology and biology. No one is a self
>> made human being, and being an "adult" does not suddenly confer
>> special powers that create a being of total self control over the
>> forces in life. Many people do not work to get what they have, it is
>> handed to them on a silver platter, and many other people work their
>> asses off and still get screwed over in one way or another. To deny
>> this is to deny the facts. No one is totally a controller of their
>> own destiny, and if this is the American dream, as you state, well,
>> the world is full of dreamers that are out of touch with reality. Of
>> course I am not saying that self determintion and hard work are not
>> good values, but they are only part of the picture of human life.
>>
>> Ted
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> From: Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>
>>> To: "Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>
>>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Why doesn't the Sisterhood learn to shoot?
>>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 06:21:47 -0800
>>>
>>> Ted:
>>>
>>> No one can make you a victim if you do not accept victimhood. We
>>> have laws in this country focused on that. My point, which I am sure
>>> that you will never concede, is that once a person---male or
>>> female---reaches adulthood, they are, or ought to be, responsible for
>>> their own actions and controllers of their own destiny. That's the
>>> American dream.
>>>
>>> It doesn't take physical strength, it doesn't take weapons or karate
>>> training. All it takes (Granted, it is a big "all"...) is guts, hard
>>> work, and an unwillingness to be pushed around. I am sick and tired
>>> of weenies whining about how the world, or the country, or their
>>> religion, or their significant other, push them around and don't
>>> recognize their "personness".
>>>
>>> If that's the truth, then they are responsible, as adults with a
>>> brain, to figure out how to stop it. They've got a brain, they are
>>> citizens, with access to a plethora of community support agencies and
>>> volunteer groups, they need to get up off of their asses and do
>>> something about it, rather than complain about how they are
>>> mistreated.
>>>
>>> And as far as the consequences you have listed---divorce, ostracism,
>>> rejection by their religion---here's a hot flash for you. TAANSTAFL.
>>> (There is no such thing as a free lunch.) In this world, you get
>>> what you work for and pay for. That is the same for everyone. If
>>> you want something badly, you must be willing to make the trade-offs
>>> to make it happen.
>>>
>>> Don Kaag
>>>
>>>
>>> On Monday, February 17, 2003, at 09:05 PM, Ted Moffett wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Don, et. al.
>>>>
>>>> Speaking of those "blinders" ... did you take them off? Or is this
>>>> more devils advocacy?
>>>>
>>>> So women who were raised in and married in a fundamentalist
>>>> Christian religion, are supposed to, according to you:
>>>> "...organize, take over and change the rules. Or change sects. Or
>>>> start their own sect. Or stop whining..." Right! They then face
>>>> possible divorce from their husbands, ostracism from the community
>>>> they have called home, and rejection from the God they sincerely
>>>> believe is the true God who has ordered through the divine word of
>>>> the Bible that women are to be obedient to their husbands. Consider
>>>> the Southern Baptists, for an example of this approach.
>>>>
>>>> The options you outline are easy to advocate, difficult to practice.
>>>>
>>>> Also consider Catholicism. You can forget the "take over and change
>>>> the rules" possibility. When do you think the Pope will be a women?
>>>> Or that women will be doing Mass? Patriarchy at it's most
>>>> institutionalized!
>>>>
>>>> And it's easy to say but much more difficult to tell someone to
>>>> abandon their faith.
>>>>
>>>> As far as "whining" goes, many of these women DON'T WHINE. But that
>>>> does NOT mean that men are not a factor in the social forces
>>>> involved in influencing these women to neglect competency in self
>>>> defense. And that these same men do not tell these same women that
>>>> they will defend them, don't worry darling!
>>>>
>>>> This is all I was saying, stating what is a sociological fact, that
>>>> you seemed to overlook: men actively are involved in influencing
>>>> many women to be helpless and dependent, and not only via the
>>>> influence of male dominated religion. How many tough macho men just
>>>> dig defending their smaller weaker women friends, and tell them as
>>>> much?
>>>>
>>>> Are you going to assert that men to not engage in these behaviors?
>>>>
>>>> The flip side of this psychology involves the opposite behavior of
>>>> men defending "helpless" women, but often is oriented toward again
>>>> inducing helplessness and powerlessness: the shocking number of
>>>> women who face physical violence from men, and if they fight back
>>>> they just get it worse. Are you aware of the rates of violent rape
>>>> and domestic violence against women in America? And that much of
>>>> this violence does induce a psychology of helplessness? Oh, I
>>>> forgot, women are all expected to be super women karate weapons
>>>> experts and kick ass, I take it? The military solution is just what
>>>> America's families need to solve the problems of domestic violence
>>>> against women. Give me a break...
>>>>
>>>> Ted
>>>>
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