Please Stop the Gender-Baiting

Has anyone else noticed that whenever certain people – and by “certain people” I mean certain feminist internet “journalists”, bloggers, and YouTube celebrities – speak, they speak as if every single issue contains a component of male vs. female and then proceed to tell you how its all part of the “war on women?”

Am I the only person who has noticed this?

Its almost as if they are in a contest with each other to see who can generate the most inter-gender division. The goal seems to find the most outrageous way you can frame a narrative in order to make it absolutely about how the world is out to get women always, every time, regardless of what the specific issue actually happens to be. This seems to be a very popular method of talking to people, and I am constantly seeing more and more supposedly “mainstream” journalists, commenters, and talking heads beginning to follow this same route. Up to – and including – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton engaging in this same tactic at one point.

Honestly, what does it take to honestly see every single issue, every single event, every single thing in the world as being a part of the so-called “war on women?” What kind of special type of stupid does it take to hold this attitude? But the attitude is held nevertheless. I've actually had one of these people tell me, with a straight face, that “everything is misogyny.”

In a world where – supposedly – everything is misogyny, is anything really misogyny? Do they really believe this horse shit? Even more important, are the various non-involved masses who hear them talking buying into it?

If a man disagrees with this sort of absolute stance on misogyny – if he believes that catcalling, just to pick one issue out of the air, is subjective and that what one person might consider offensive and/or threatening might not be seen as offensive or threatening to another person, for example – he will inevitably be met with comments like, “You're such a misogynyst! You're talking about something you know nothing about! How dare you think you should have an opinion! Stop mansplaining!” Even if he has real world examples with which to support and validate his perspective, the people pushing the “everything is misogyny” party line will paint the man's viewpoint and statements as just another part of the “war on women”. No matter how right he is, he is wrong because he's male. And how dare he disagree in the first place, because only misogynists would dare disagree.

I am proud to say that I have female friends who think objectively as opposed to blindly falling in line with “the Sisterhood” that demands all women adhere to the “everything is misogyny” party line just because they are female. They are willing to logically analyze the arguments as presented and quite honestly have often disagreed with this attitude on the basis of fact rather than adherence to dogma.

The fact that not all people – men or women – use this same logical, reasonable process in thinking when it comes to gender issues is a damned crying shame. Instead, every single day there seems to be a widening division occurring between men and women, as if we were each other's enemies.

Women are not the enemy of men. The very idea is stupid.

So why do we allow these people to continue perpetuating the constant division between the genders?

Why?

By allowing these people to get away with perpetuating such a lie, their message spreads. It begins to seep into the consciousness of our children, which is why you have so many young girls today believing that rape is an act that all men everywhere are rapists just waiting for the chance to attack and violate a woman. That women must be on guard against men 24 hours a day, seven days a week lest they become victims of violence.

There is an interesting fact that these gender-baiters fail to mention, because they know this will undermine the paranoid bullshit they are promoting, and ought to nullify their agenda of dividing men and women into armed camps opposed to one another.

Simply put, men are four to five times as likely to be victims of violence than women are.

This nonsense has to stop. It has to stop. We as a society cannot afford to allow it to continue. I genuinely believe this this sort of thing is a form of brainwashing. It does nothing to help when it comes to solving the honest problems facing men and women. All it does is get us at each other's throats, and that helps no one.

If you want to have a conversation about gender and gender-based discrimination – whether the victim of the discrimination is male or female – then by all means go for it. Such conversations need to happen. But gender-baiting puts a stop to the discussion before it begins, and does more harm than good.

Feminism's False Dichotomy

"I'd like every man who doesn't call himself a feminist to explain to the women in his life why he doesn't believe in equality." -- Louise Brealy

Ladies and gentlemen, let me direct your attention to this statement by British actress, writer, and journalist Louise Brealey.  I call your attention to it because it is indicative of modern feminist thought.  It is also a perfect example of what intelligent people call the "False Dichotomy Fallacy."


Putting it quite simply, the False Dichotomy Fallacy is when a person frames their arguments as if there is only two possible options to choose from.  That is, they frame their argument so that either A is the truth, or B is the truth, as if there are no other possible options, despite the fact that its perfectly possible for any of the options C through Z to actually be true.


In this case, Ms. Brealey is saying "If you do not support feminism (Option A) you must oppose gender equality (Option B)."  Her statement makes it quite clear that, in her opinion, at least, you cannot believe in and support gender equality if you are not a feminist.  And the reason why this is a fallacy (that is, the reason why it is bad logic) is simple:  it is absolutely possible to not favor "Feminism" (a specific political movement) and yet still be in favor of "gender equality" (a specific political ideal).


If you're wondering how such a thing is possible, I beg of you:  open your mind and stop drinking the Kool-Aid for a moment and listen.  It is possible for several reasons.


First, it is entirely possible to be a proponent of gender equality, yet not agree with the methods by which the feminist movement goes about achieving gender equality.  Remember the push to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, back in the 70s and early 80s?  There were several pro-women groups -- groups made up of women campaigning on behalf of the rights of women -- who opposed the ERA because they opposed the specific language involved in the proposed amendment.  They were not opposed to the idea of gender equality -- they just didn't like the fact that the Amendment, as it was written, infantilized women and implied that they (women) were second class citizens.


In addition, several of those women refused to describe themselves as "feminist" and did not support the ERA because they didn't go for the "sexual politics" part of the movement (and by that they and I mean the actual "sex" parts of the politics -- the free access to birth control, the support of abortion, and so on) while supporting the "gender politics" parts of it (equal pay for equal work, no second class citizen status, and so on) involved in feminism,  These women still supported gender equality, but didn't agree with the entire platform built by organized feminism and thus would not identify themselves as feminist.


Second, it is entirely possible to dislike the "enshrining female privilege" aspects of the modern feminist movement without wanting to end equality between the genders.  The modern feminist movement opposes -- and I am not making this up, they actively OPPOSE -- any attempt to bring more public awareness to male victims of rape or domestic violence, or equal access to recovery resources for male victims of rape and domestic violence.  The movement apparently sees such efforts as "taking the resources away from women", who are apparently more important than men simply because they are women.


They also oppose doing anything about leveling the playing field for men in Family Courts (thus giving men the rights and consideration already enjoyed by women) or the problem of false accusations of rape and abuse being used as weapons in divorce cases (to put it bluntly, the feminist movement claims that there are no false accusations, and that women would never stoop so low as to use a rape or abuse claim as a weapon against a man).


They oppose doing anything about the fact that the percentage of men graduating from college is dropping swiftly.


And they oppose -- and this one get's me fucking angry, guys -- they actively lobby against the increase of governmental funding for research into so-called "men's health issues" like testicular cancer and the like despite the fact that men's health research is only funded to the tune of a tenth (1/10th) of how women's health research is funded.


And remember, while they are fighting to stop anyone doing anything about these problems, they are screaming to the rooftops about how society as a whole is ignoring "women's problems".  Which makes their opposition to men's causes a little suspect to me.


Now, realistically, I cannot say that every single feminist on the planet opposes all of these things.  As individuals, I'm sure that they don't; I'm sure that there are feminists out there who are perfectly willing to campaign for more assistance to male domestic violence victims, or to level the playing field in family court.


But...


However...


That said...


Unfortunately, the feminist movement -- organized feminism as an overall whole -- actively and effectively does oppose these things.


And on that basis alone, it is perfectly reasonable for a lot of people to look at the actions of the organized feminist movement, think about it a little bit, and then come to the conclusion that they just can't get on board with that.  It is perfectly reasonable for them to say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if feminism means treating male rape victims as jokes to be ignored at best and insulted and abused at worst."  Or say "Sorry, but I am not a feminist if being a feminist means thinking that there's no reason to do anything about men dying ten to fifteen years earlier than women, or committing suicide four times as often, or dying of cancer twice as often."


Which, to bring it back to the point I started on, means that anyone saying "You're either a feminist or you're a bigot who opposes equality" is either an idiot (which Ms. Brealey isn't) or has some sort of agenda that would benefit from people not thinking about just how much damage the feminist movement is truly doing to our society.


Think about it.

No Evidence For Jesus. No Evidence At All.

I keep having to post this.


On Facebook, I'm active in several different groups dealing with atheism and Christianity. And being so active, I have found I have to repeatedly refute certain claims regarding extra-Biblical proof of the existence of Jesus.

At one point, I had to post this three times, to three different people, over the space of three days. I am disgusted that Creationists just do not seem to learn, and I'm tired of it. So if there are any creationists out there, I'm about to give you an ass-whipping you deserve.


Kevin Jones said, “There is more solid evidence for Jesus Christ than there is for any other historical figure.

If you really believe this, let me just get this out of the way: you're an idiot, and you're wrong.

And here is why.

First, we have no contemporary sources that mention Jesus Christ. None. Absolutely none. And no, none of the sources Christiants usually name were contemporary. "Contemporary", since you apparently cannot understand the concept, means "occurring at the same time."

Second, quite often, when they make claims about “historical evidence”, what they are actually trying to do is use the Bible as evidence for the Bible. Even if this weren't easily dismissed as a logical fallacy (go look up “circular reasoning”, folks), it still wouldn't work. Let me tell you about the Bible, folks. The Bible has been demonstratably proven beyond any possible doubt to have been changed, edited, and rewritten to suit the religious and political dogma of men who lived *centuries* after the supposed lifetime of Christ.

And when I say "changed, edited, and rewritten copies", I would like to point out that sometimes those changes, edits, and rewrites are substantial.

In addition, careful study of the Pauline epistles in the New Testament have shown that while all of the Epistles are supposedly written by Paul, at least fifteen of them (1 Peter, 2 Peter, James, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, Jude, Hebrews, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philipians, Philemon, Colossians, and Ephesians) were absolutely not written by Paul at all. Most of these were, in fact, written between 150 and 250 years after Paul supposedly was martyred in Rome.

The remaining Epistles (Galatians, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians, and Romans) have been thrown into doubt as to their authenticity to the point that its entirely possible that Paul didn't write any of them.

At the very least, later parties took Paul's original words and heavily edited and rewrote them. We know this through careful examination of the vocabulary and the grammar used, and their relationship to the known timeline of the life of Paul (to put it bluntly, at least two of the epistles turn out to be happening at the same time, meaning that Paul was in two places at once -- and these places are hundreds of miles from each other).

Despite the fact that Biblical literalists like to claim otherwise, we know that the Gospels were not written by the men whose names are on them (indeed, outside of the Bible, there's not a lot of evidence that these four men even existed). Mark did not write Mark, John did not write John, and so on. So who did write the Bible? We don't have the first damned clue.

We don't even have original copies. What we have are copies of copies of copies. So we really have no idea what the sources for these documents, which remember the literalists thing are historically authoritative, really are.

And this goes for the apocryphal gospels and epistles also. We don't have the originals, we don't know when they were written, and most of them aren't old enough to be contemporary.

The New Testament canon wasn't assembled until three hundred years after the alleged death of Jesus. The Bible as we know it right now didn't exist until the Fourth Century CE. The reason why the New Testament looks the way it looks is because a man named Athanasius pretty much unilaterally declared it would look like it does.

But for the sake of argument, let's look at some of the usual suspects, the people Christians often claim can be counted as “extra-Biblical evidence” for the existence of Jesus.

Publius Cornelius Tacitus: Tacitus was a Roman senator and historian. He was born in 64 CE, and he didn't write "Annals" (the history that Christians like to cite as if it proves something) until 109 CE. That's a century after the fact, young man. A century. Trying to claim that Tacitus is contemporary with the supposed life of Christ is like me claiming to be contemporary of Ulysses S. Grant. After all, I was alive in the 1960s and he was alive in the 1860s, right?

In any case, Tacitus doesn't mention Jesus, he mentions "the followers of a certain man named Christus" and gives no source for his information. What he's writing about in Annals is information that he heard from a guy who heard it from a guy who heard it from a guy, a hundred years after the fact. That's hearsay, and absolutely has no value.

Thallus. The problem with Thallus is that we don't actually have anything from anyone named Thallus that makes any mention of anything that could be considered close to Jesus. What we have is a 9th Century Byzantine priest named George Syncellus writing that a 3rd Century priest named Sextus Julius Africanus wrote about some unknown writer named Thallus who supposedly wrote a contemporary description of a solar eclipse at Jesus's crucifixion.

Even worse, we don't even have the document from Africanus that talks about Thallus. All we have is Syncellus claiming that Africanus says something about Thallus saying something. More hearsay. No evidence.

Now, there is note from that notorious liar, con-man, and forger Eusebius of Caesaria who claims that Josephus also wrote about this Thallus account, but that's still one guy talking about what a second guy who got it from a third guy. Even worse, at this point no historian worth his PhD would accept the word of Eusebius of Caesaria if he said the sky was blue because he's been shown to be, as I mentioned, a fraud.

Clement of Rome: Born sometime between 90 and 100 CE. Not contemporary.

Ignatius: Born sometime between 55 and 65 CE. Not contemporary.

Polycarp: Born in 69 CE. Not contemporary.

Barnabas: There's no actual evidence this person was real. Traditionally, this is the Barnabas mentioned in the Bible, and several works have been ascribed to him, but most of these works actually date to long after the man's supposed martyrdom (for which he don't have any evidence, either) some time around 80 CE. The best account we have of Barnabas is the journal of Anthemios, Archbishop of Constantia, who claimed to have been visited by Barnabas in a dream.

So yeah, the evidence we have for Barnabas even existing is a dream.

Papias: He wrote his "fragments" between 95 and 120 CE. Not contemporary.

Justin Martyr: He was born until 100 CE. A century after the supposed life of Christ. Not contemporary.

Aristides the Athenian: He suffers the same problem as Thallus. All we have of his work is Eusebius the Liar describing how Aristides said thus and so. We don't actually have copies of his work, so its all hearsay, and thus no evidence at all.

Athenagoras the Athenian: He wasn't born until 133 CE. Not contemporary.

Theophilus: Wasn't born until 165 CE. Not contemporary.

Quadratus of Athens: Also known as Quadratus the Martyr: Yet another religious figure we have no evidence actually existed other than the well-known lying word of Eusebius of Caesaria. Again, we have no copies of his works, just Eusebius telling us what the man supposedly said.

Aristo of Pella: We can put Eristo in the "Eusebius probably made him up" club, as the only mention we have of him or his work is Mr. "Lying for the Holy Mother Church is a Virtue" himself.

Melito of Sardis: We don't actually know when Melito of Sardis was born. But we do know when he died: 195 CE. Now, seeing as its highly doubtful that the man was over 200 years old when he died, its entirely reasonable to say that he, too, was not a contemporary of Jesus.

The Didache: The Didache was first mentioned by our favorite Christian con-man, Eusebius. There is absolutely no evidence for it being older than the 2nd Century, and all the evidence we do have for its origins show that it was actually written by Eusebius himself. Like most of his writings, the Didache claims to be a contemporary account (specifically, of the actions and teachings of the twelve apostles), but no credible scholar actually believes this.

The Epistle of Dignetus: This document was written by an unknown someone sometime between 130 CE and 200 CE, based on the language and other textual evidence. Thus, it is not a contemporary document.

Josephus Flavius: Josephus, the Jewish historian, was born in 37 CE. His "Antiquities" wasn't even written until 93 CE, after the first gospels got written. Therefore, even if his accounts about Jesus came from his hand, his information could only serve as hearsay. In addition, despite the best wishes of believers and the lies of Christian apologists, the account found in "Antiquities" has been definitively proven to be a forgery written by, you guessed it, Eusebius of Caesaria. So thoroughly has this passage been debunked that no credible Biblical scholar ever mentions Josephus except to use it as an example of a Christian forgery and hoax.

Pliny the Younger: Pliny was born in 62 C.E. Not contemporary. Also, his letter about the Christians only shows that he got his information from Christian believers themselves.  Lastly, the earliest versions of the manuscript do not have that account. That likely means that the account in Pliny the Younger's work was added later by Christians.

Phlegon of Tralles: Wrote his histories in 137 CE. Not contemporary.

Lucian: Born in 125 CE. Not contemporary.

Celsus: According to Origen, Celsus wrote "The True Word", his attack on Christianity, in 177 CE. We don't have any surviving copies, but the fact that Origin places it nearly 200 years after the supposed life of Christ means he's not contemporary either.

Mara bar Serapion: Dates to 73 CE. Not contemporary.

Suetonius: Seutonius has two problems. First, he was born in 69 CE and thus isn't contemporary. Second, he doesn't mention Jesus at all. He mentions a criminal named "Chrestus," which was a common name at the time ("Christ" is a title, not a name). His account is only about Jesus if you squint, tilt your head, and pretend.


So to say there is no authentic historical evidence that Jesus Christ walked the earth is simply to be utterly factual and in accordance with modern Biblical scholarship.

Thus endeth the lesson.

The Breaking of a Myth

Common wisdom says that men commit the overwhelming majority of rapes.

Common wisdom is wrong.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2013 (figures for 2014 have not been tabulated yet) there were 1,270,000 reported rapes in the United States.  I say "reported rapes" because only 22% of them were actually determined to really be rapes.  The rest were either proven to not have been rapes or else were not proven one way or the other.


But here is where it gets interesting:  In 2013, in addition to the 1,270,000 reported rapes, there were 1,268,000 reported cases of "made to penetrate."


Don't know what "made to penetrate" means?  That's okay, you're not alone.  Most people don't know what "made to penetrate means."


Here's the deal:  "made to penetrate" is what the people at the Centers for Disease Control and the US Department of Justice call it when a woman rapes a man.


The reason they call it "made to penetrate" instead of "rape" is because the National Organization for Women spent close to $15,000,000 putting political pressure on the government to change the official definition of "rape" so that instead of just meaning "forced sex that occurs against the consent of one of the parties", it means specifically "penetration of the vagina or anus by a body part or foreign object."


Highly convenient, isn't it, that this immediately removed most of the occurrences of rape that women were responsible for?  Oh sure, women do still commit rape, but now its only "rape" when they use a body part (like a finger, I suppose) or a foreign object (like a vegetable, or a bottle, or a dildo) to penetrate someone else's vagina or anus.  And the other kind of female-instigated rape, the kind where a woman forces a man to penetrate her, is no longer considered rape.


When the government reports rape statistics, they don't include "made to penetrate" cases.  "Made to penetrate" is included under the category "other types of sexual assault."  This lets feminists say, with a straight face, that men commit the overwhelming number of rapes.


But the numbers do not lie.  In 2013, there were 2,538,000 reports of rape (a number arrived at by adding together both the official number of rapes and the official number of "made to penetrate" cases), and women were responsible for almost half of these rapes, which they committed against men.


Don't believe me?  Here... have a graphic.  This was taken from the US Justice Department's own website.

The difference between the number of rapes and the number of "made to penetrate" cases was only 3000 reports.

Of course, the last thing any feminist wants to admit is that women commit rape at the same rate as men.  Because that destroys the myth of rape culture and the myth of patriarchy.

The Tipping Point

As time has gone on its become more and more obvious that the word is out about the Feminist Movement, and no matter how much they want to , they will not be able to shove the genie back in the bottle.

More and more people are coming to be aware that modern Feminism is not the solution, it is the problem, and these people are talking about it, loudly and publicly, in greater and greater numbers. And trust me, these people are not pleased and they aren't afraid to say so. Granted, this trend has gone unnoticed by mainstream media, but the blind dedication to the “Feminist narrative” from the mainstream media is beginning to look suspiciously like the old-boys neighborhood covering their asses. Of course, Feminism is still a sacred cow for many people. That said, it is only a matter of time before the critical number of anti-Feminist dissidents find the nerve to desecrate that sacred cow with gusto, in public, and in broad daylight.

The organized Feminist movement is well aware of this, and are well aware of how much of a threat to their political and financial power, their Party Line, and their ability to manipulate other people for their own advantage. So they have reason to be afraid of the dissident movement, and what they fear the most is the number of dissidents reaching the tipping point. This tipping point is the moment in time when non-feminists are so numerous and no vocal and so informed that they are capable of making political and economic changes to the current narrative. Its when the dissidents have the strength in numbers to openly voice, en-mass, their disgust with the modern Feminist movement.

When the non-feminist tipping point is reached, a counter-feminist culture that constantly questions and criticizes the modern, anti-male sexist narrative promoted by the modern Feminist movement will spread across public awareness to the point that it merges with the culture at large.

On that day, Feminism loses the power of self-definition and it loses this power forever. The world will be telling Feminism what Feminism is all about. They will no longer be able to hide behind a bogus dictionary definition. They will no longer be able to make bullshit claims that they are all about “gender equality” and will be exposed as the misandrists that they really are.

Quite understandably, the Feminist movement want to keep this from happening.

They are, in fact, terrified of it happening to the point that they'd basically do anything to prevent it. And we can summarize their primary method of preventing it with one word.

Isolation.

By which I mean that Feminism is trying to cast itself in the role of “the only gender equality movement anyone ever needs”, and as such, it is somehow empowered by a “manifest destiny” to take the reins of any discussion on gender-based issues. To prevent the inevitable loss of political and economic power, organized Feminism will brook no resistance to its dogma or its actions, regardless of how repulsive those actions and dogma happen to be. Everything outside of feminism is thus treated as either a space to be filled up with Feminism, or else a resource to be exploited by Feminism in some way or another.

It is thus the opinion of Feminism that everything that is not Feminism must be redefined so that they are only thought of in Feminist terms.

The non-vocal anti-feminists, those who agree that there are huge problems with the movement but who do not take steps to share their disagreement with it, they pose no current danger and thus are ignored. It is those people like me, those know-it-all, uppity, vocal anti-feminists, the ones who are already speaking out and damn the consequences, armed with facts and figures and statements that show that the modern Feminist movement is nothing but an anti-male hate machine, this means containment.

The challenge for Feminism being just how to go about this.

For years now, its been pretty easy. All the Feminists needed to do was weld the idea of anti-feminism (an opposition to a political movement) to misogyny (an opposition to a human demographic). Now, anyone with half a brain knows that a political movement is not the same as a human demographic, but what the fuck does organized feminism care about the truth. Hence, the idea of resistance to feminism became equivalent to misogyny in the minds of the naive and uneducated.

For instance, note the constant use of the term MRA (for “Men's Rights Activist”, someone who is concerned with male-oriented gender issues) as a coded substitute for the word “misogynist”. The implication being that no one can really give a shit about men, the rights of men, or the issues men face that women just do not face without hating and despising women. Its a subtle sort of brain-washing. You repeat a huge lie often enough, and people start to believe it, after all. As the Nazi's proved, humanity as a whole is prone to such mental conditioning.

Let's talk about Feminism and misogyny, shall we?

The modern Feminism movement does not actually give a shit about ending misogyny, or really doing anything about it. It just doesn't. It is of interest to them only because they can use the term as a weapon against their political enemies, and the only reason they continually talk about misogyny is because they are desperately trying to convince everyone that misogyny is the equivalent of anti-feminism.

Misogyny, you see, is of no threat to Feminism. Anti-feminism, on the other hand, absolutely is a threat to them and thus must be dealt with and dealt with in as definitive and final a manner as possible. Feminist containment strategy is to label all active anti-feminists (along with everything they say and do) as misogynist. However, only the anti-feminists are treated this way. The actual misogyny poses no threat to Feminism, and thus is never addressed. Its included in the Feminist reaction only in order to taint the anti-feminists.


The reaction from the naive public is thus to regard anything critical of feminism as “misogyny”, no matter how well-established, how factually based, or how TRUE. This is the reaction that organized Feminism is banking on, and they work very hard to encourage it.

Feminists thus group their legitimate critics with such actual misogynists as Marc Lepine, Rush Limbaugh, Darren Mack, greasy pick-up artists, random commenters, “manly-men,” teenage boys angry at teenage girls for breaking up with them, and online “harassment” by trolls who are just looking to stir the shit and really don't have any interest in hating women.

The legitimate anti-feminists, people like Warren Farrell, Janice Fiamengo, Carnell Smith, Monica Ebeling, Glenn Sacks, Erin Pizzey, Nadine Cross, Samantha Weissner, Trudy Schuett, Karen Straughan, Nick Reading, Sage Gerard, Adam Kostakis, and of course myself are all painted as misogynists by association because we threaten the feminist power structure. At the same time, sources of information like A Voice for Men, Misandry Awareness, and Help Male Victims are listed as “hate-groups.”

As I said earlier, they use the term MRA as code, meaning “misogynist”. They bleat on about “Patriarchy” and the “manosphere” and “rape culture”, knowing full well that none of those things really exist in this country. In the mouths of Feminists, these words are all code. They are figures of speech used to push the Big Lie.


The reality is more complex.


To a Feminist, the world is colored either black or white. To a Feminist, there is absolutely no difference between simply lacking a Feminist outlook and actively opposing it because both get in Feminism's way. To declare that you are merely not a Feminist is, in the eyes of Feminism, the same as actively working against the Feminist movement.


Against such people, the Feminist movement uses both direct and indirect aggression. With the direct aggression, such people know that they are under fire. They are publicly insulted and attacked. Even worse, they are threatened indirectly. “Keep your mouth shut or we will target you the same as any rapist woman-hater.” Because, in accordance with Feminist dogma, if you're not a Feminist you're a bigot. This intimidates most passive anti-feminists into remaining silent because they fear being tarred with the misogynist brush.

According to Feminist propaganda, by simply saying “I am not a feminist” you are mystically lumped into the same immoral grouping as real misogynists like Lepine or Limbaugh. Such is the libel which Feminism propagates in its drive to contain the anti-feminist tipping point.

The fact that Feminism has to resort to such cheap and criminal methods ought to make people think twice about Feminism as a matter of course. I mean, do we really need such bullies?

Reaching the tipping point is inevitable, but its not going to be easy. Many people who, at this point, still identify themselves as Feminists, will have a hard time accepting that the Feminist movement is essentially rotten to the core and utterly irrecoverable. They still believe in the ideals of Feminism – Hell, I still believe in the ideals of Feminism – and thus will have a hard time accepting that the movement that supposedly supports those ideas has gone bad.

But it has.

The ideals are all very laudible and worthy of preservation, but the movement itself has gone off the rails. And its way past time that we all start talking about it.

A Message to Vegetarians and Vegans

This is something that's been bubbling to the surface for a while.


If you choose to be vegan or vegetarian, I will totally, one hundred percent, support you.


If you want to tell people about how healthy you feel since you went vegan or vegetarian, great!  Share your experiences and tell people all about your dietary choices if you want. That’s totally cool and I think it’s great for people to get their opinions heard.


But please, for the love of scientific integrity, DO!  NOT!  LIE!  TO!  PEOPLE!


I am so sick and tired of hearing vegan/vegetarian scare tactics and blatant misinformation.


The human body can digest meat and we are perfectly adapted to do so!


Eating meat was a crucial part in evolving the large brains we have today!  It was the intake of animal fat and protein that gave us the nutrients we needed to evolve our larger brains.  It’s what separated our ancestors from the other great apes.


"But the human digestive tract is nothing like that of other carnivores! We more closely resemble herbivores! Clearly we were meant to eat veggies, not meat!"


Human beings are OMNIVORES.  We evolved to eat both meat and plant matter. Early humans were not picky in this regard. They hunted animals, they gathered whatever vegetables, tubers, nuts, and berries were available. If they could keep it down, they probably ate it.


And during the winter months, when vegetation was scarce, our ancestors relied almost exclusively on animals for sustenance.


Our digestive system is the reason you don’t have to keep throwing up your food and re-eating it all day, or keep constantly grazing, just to get through the day like herbivores do.  You can skip a meal or two if you have to, and if you ate a particularly filling and nutrient-dense meal beforehand, you’ll be perfectly okay with this!  This is the carnivore part of your digestive system at work.


If you want to be vegan or vegetarian for moral reasons, more power to you. I think it’s admirable for you to take up the cause, and I agree that our food industry is despicable and needs a major overhaul.


If you want to be vegan or vegetarian because of your objection to society’s reliance on unhealthy foods, good for you! It’s difficult to stick to a non-traditional diet with the way we’re constantly bombarded with all sorts of unhealthy foods everyday. It’s admirable of you to take the extra effort for your health.


But for crying out loud, stop lying to people about our biological make-up. You’re only undermining your own points and pissing off potential meat-eating allies (such as myself!) in your fight for cruelty-free farming and/or healthier food options!

More Reasons to Like the Government

Got a joke for you.

How many government bureaucrats does it take to screw in a light bulb?  Two.  One to assure everyone that everything possible is being done to correct the problem, the other to screw the light bulb into the water faucet.

I've written in other notes how one of the more pernicious lies created by the conservatives is that the American government is a ham-handed fumbler that has a poor record of achievement.  Conservatives (and their puppets, the Libertarians -- more about them in another note) are constantly promoting the idea that the government is so incompetent and unsuited to actually govern that it couldn't find its own collective ass with a flashlight, a road map, and a detailed set of directions.  They've been telling this lie so often and so loudly and for so long that people who are otherwise sane and intelligent have come to believe it.

A lot of Americans have accepted this image of the American government as a collection of corrupt, incompetent, bungling clowns.  Ask most Americans and they will tell you that if you want something really screwed up, hand it over to the government.  According to a Time Magazine survey, only 4% of all Americans say that they have a lot of confidence in the government to solve problems.  Nearly 64% said "No confidence at all" or "Just a little confidence."  Three our of four called the government "Incompetent" regardless of the complexity and the difficulty of the problem involved.  Nearly 70% said that government "creates more problems than it solves."

Conservative talking head Sean Hannity once said, "The more important question isn't why government is so big, but why it fails at everything."  Another conservative, Charles Murray, said, "The reality of daily life is that the things government does tend to be ugly, rude, slovenly, and do not work."  Rush Limbaugh, on one of his radio shows, once said, "With the exception of the military, I defy you to name one government program that has worked and alleviated the problem it was created to solve."

The truth, though, is different.

Once we begin to look at the actual performance of major governmental programs, what we find is that the vast majority of them not only solved the problems they were designed to solve, but improved on them and insured that the problem would never arise again.

This of course flies in the face of conventional wisdom, but it is nonetheless the truth.  The evidence is there, if anyone bothered to look.

So, can I, as Rush Limbaigh demanded, name "just one government program that's worked to alleviate the problem it was created to solve?"

Challenge accepted, Mr. Limbaugh.  I can not only name one, I can name ten.  And if I really, really felt like it, I could name thousands more.

1.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC):  In the 1970s, the Federal government began to pass laws that protected consumers from shoddy and dangerous products.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission remains the primary agency that enforces these laws.  And do not think for one minute that it is no longer needed.  Consumer products still kill over 20,000 people a year, and injure over 20 million more.  If the CPSC did not recall thousands of dangerous products each year, these numbers would be far higher.  It is estimated that its actions save over $10 billion in health care bills, property damage, and other costs associated with these defective products.

2.  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC):  Everyone takes this one for granted.  This is federal protection for our bank accounts.  In times of eonomic downturn, banks are inherently vulnerable to "runs" -- times when worried depositors all seek to take every cent they have out of the bank all at the same time.  During the Great Depression, nearly 5000 banks went bust, and millions of Americans lost everything they had, because of this practice.  During the financial crisis of 2008, there were no runs on banks, because the government was there to guarantee the safety of people's bank deposits.

3.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA):  This is another agency that the corporations, especially the pharmaceutical companies, complain about, mainly because it is doing its job.  Americans alive today have no idea how hazardous it was prior to the creation of the FDA to simply eat, or take medicine.  The FDA makes sure that the medicine millions of people take every single day actually does what it says it does.  And it makes sure our food supply is healthy and uncontaminated.  The American public is safer and healthier because of it.

4.  The GI Bill:  Without this program, the middle class as we know it today simply would not exist.  At all.  The GI Bill provides governmental support that allows millions of our veterans to attent college.  On a personal level, it allowed me to become the first member of my generation to get a college degree in my family.  The people who received these benefits, starting with the veterans of World War II, changed the face of American society by drastically raising the level of education, and thus the level of productivity and social discourse, in this country.

5.  The Interstate Highway System:  The interstate highways are the backbone of this nation, and modern America could not function without it.  The hundreds of thousands of miles of highway only make up about 2% of the total roadway mileage, but every single day of every single year it carries almost 30% of all roadway traffic in this country.  The interstates have allowed millions of Americans to move away from the cities and live in more pleasant suburban and small town environments.  They are statistically more safe than more traditional roadways, saving hundreds of thousands of lives each year.  Conservative George Will once called it, "the most successful public works program in the history of the human race."  The interstate system has become a part of the lives of each and every American, and I, for one, could not imagine the United States without it.  And without the government, it would never have existed.

6.  The National Weather Service (NWS):  This agency does more than just provide a daily weather forecast.  It also helps insure the safety of planes in the air and ships at sea, and has saved countless lives with its hurricane and tornado warnings.  The science behind its actions is getting better every year, and its predictions have been getting more and more accurate as time's past.

7.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA):  Businesses love to complain about OSHA and its rules.  Turns out, the people who actually work at OSHA take pride in being complained about, because they say that's how they know they're doing their jobs.  Sure, sometimes the policies have been a bit overboard, but at the same time its very clearly been effective and successful.  In 1970, the year before President Richard Nixon (a conservative Republican, remember) created OSHA, over 22 million people were injured on the job and over 14,000 died from job-related injuries.  Since 1970 and 2013, workplace deaths and injuries have decreased by 96%.  Particularly impressive has been the virtual eradication of cases of brown lung disease, which was once the leading cause of death among textile workers.

8.  Public Health Programs:  There have been a variety of programs overseen by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and state and local Public Health Departments that have greatly and dramatically improved the level of health of every single American.  Just to name a few, the scourges of polio, cholera, and smallpox have been effectively exterminated.  Vaccination programs have effectively ended the risks of a random person contracting diseases like hepatitis, measles, mumps, tetanus, rubella, and diptheria by nearly 95%.  Federal funding spent on buying and distributing these vaccines have saved countless lives and will go on to save countless more, and have saved billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent fighting these illnesses.  In addition, the CDC is what stands between the American people and potentially catastrophic epidemics imported from other countries.

9.  The Settlement of the Western United States:  Very few people realize this, but the development of the West was basically a huge government program.  It was that way from the very beginning, starting with the federally funded journey of exploration undertaken by Lewis and Clarke.  It continued with the unfortunate "Indian Removal Program" that, despite being one of the greatest crimes this country has ever committed, directly led to more settlers entering the western territories.  The government sold public land to homesteaders in Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas to encourage development, and in some cases (in Oklahoma especially) gave it away for free.  The railroads, which were the most direct cause of growth in the West, were federally subsidized projects.  And even today, farming in the west is made possible by federal water management projects, ranching is possible because of the use of federal lands for grazing by ranchers, and mining is possible by dirt cheap access to federal lands.  Cities like Los Angeles and Las Vegas would dry up and blow away if it weren't for federally funded dam and canal projects that bring water to those metropoli.  Its ironic that so much of the country's anti-government sentiment is based in this area, because without the federal government, this area would be an uninhabited wasteland.

10.  Social Security and Medicare:  Without these two programs, growing old would be a living hell for most Americans.  Before these two programs, starving to death was a real possibility for millions of the elderly.  Social Security cut the rate of poverty for the elderly by half (the rate was 29% in 1966; as of 2013 the rate is 10%).  Economist Jane Bryant Quinn described Social Security as "arguably the greatest success story for the US government".  Medicare shares a similar success.  It has doubled the number of elderly people covered by health insurance so that 99% of all people over the age of 60 now enjoy that benefit.  Without this program, 15 million of our poorest citizens would be going without medical care entirely, or would be forced to choose between health care and eating.


So, there you have it, Mr. Limbaugh.  And like I said, I could have named thousands more governmental programs that worked just as planned, and did the job they were created to do.

Government Is Not the Problem

Here's the truth:  governments make mistakes sometime.

Government, like all things, is not perfect.

And when government botches things up, it generally botches things up disasterously.

Especially when the Republicans are in charge.  No, seriously, a study was done regarding events which the government completely and totally messed up on, and the Republicans lead the Democrats for incompetent management of government by a ratio of 4:1.

And of course, government is not the proper solution to all problems, and is hardly ever the entire solution to anything.

Here's more truth for you:  the government is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to handle certain issues.  It is the only entity large enough and powerful enough to stand up to, and stop, the abuses of democracy and other American ideals by those who would attempt to dominate, subjugate, and explot the interests of We the People...   In this sense, the government, especially at the federal level, is very definitely the ultimate solution.

There is a long tradition in this country of carping about the government.  And its not just this government, either.  I'm absolutely certain that somewhere, sometime, way back in Ancient Mesopotamia, somebody was complaining about Sargon the Great and how his administration was doing nothing to assuage the troubles faced by the common man.  Of course, before the rise of modern democracy, those who complained about government generally were those who had been disenfranchised somehow.  The poor and the downtrodden.  The outlaws.  The political enemies.  Because prior to democracy, the rich and the powerful loved the government.  After all, they were the government.

For the poor, it was generally wise to keep your complaints about how the local lord was running his fiefdom to yourself unless you had a real need to discover what torture and execution felt like.  This all changed with Democracy.  First with the United States, then with France, and then slowly with the rest of the world.  Suddenly the age-old tradition of government being the plaything of the rich and powerful was completely flipped.  Democratic governments were controlled, at least theoretically, by We the People...

Unfortunately, this didn't sit well with government's former owners.  They knew that this "democracy" fad had to go, and so they came up with two basic strategies.  First, they tried to buy it back.  Politicians, judges, and public officials of all stripes were generally quite amenable to this idea, selling their time, attention, and loyalty, not to mention their honesty and integrity, to the highest bidder.  But it wasn't enough.  Try as they might, the rich and powerful couldn't ever seen to fully complete their conquest of the government and all those pesky We the People... who weren't interested in just standing back and letting the rich take over again.  So they came up with a second, complimentary strategy.  The second strategy involved dividing and conquering.  If the rich could persuade a bare majority of the really stupid poor people to go along with them, they could tighten their grip on the reins of power.

There are a lot of ways to divide.  Race and religion are the two greatest hits when it comes to causing a population to eat itself, and boy howdy were these put to good use by the rich and powerful in their efforts to divide We the People...  Concurrent with the rise of democracy, however, came a new tactic:  promoting active distrust of the government, so as to lessen its legitimacy.  It also lessened the people's sense of ownership of the government.  A disenchanted and apathetic citizenry, one that doesn't think government works, and doesn't think their vote counts, will tune out the entire subject of politics.  They will not show up at polling places, and thus not exercise their power of control over the government.  This gives a much wider opportunity for the rich and powerful to grab control with only a small percentage of the voters helping them to do it.

This tactic is pure evil.

No, seriously, it's evil.  It's evil because it intentionally risks driving the entire country into the ground.  The wisest leaders know that citizens loving and believing in their government is crucial to the strength and well-being of the entire nation.  Conservatives are willing to abuse this ancient axiom to gain political and economic power.  They rationalize it away by saying that it is they, the rich and powerful, who have always had the "divine right to rule."  But the truth is, they have no interest whatsoever in a nation "for the people, by the people, and of the people."  What they want is a return to the "good old days" when there was no democracy.

With the faith of We the People... in their government wrecked, the rich and powerul can do whatever they want.  They can slash taxes on themselves while increasing taxes on the poor and middle class.  They can deregulate their giant, predatory businesses.  They can write laws and appoint judges who will favor them.  They can loot the treasury.  They can start wars all over the globe.  They can propagate their fundamental philosophy, that "greed is good."  They become what they most crave to be:  rulers of the world.  You know that the ruination of America is not far off when such a philosophy, as utterly lacking in any sort of virtue as it is, gains the upper hand.  The less We the People... believe in their government, the weaker they are, and the better the rich and powerful like it.

The people in the lower and middle classes who support these corporate oligarchs in their take-over of the United States are those who share some of the anger and bitterness of governmental control over their "freedoms."  Again, just as with the rich and powerful, it is their "traditional values" that they believe are being threatened by the government.  These "freedoms", these "traditional values", are things like the freedom to discriminate, the freedom to be as prejudiced and hateful as they want to be.  The freedom to force other people to live as they do.  The freedom to suppress books and movies and television shows and music they don't like.  Those are the freedoms and traditional values we're talking about.  And this is why social conservatives buy into the "government is the problem" bullshit.  They see government spreading and enabling equality, liberty, justice for all, and the pursuit of happiness -- in other words, government trying to live up to its own ideals -- they see government spreading scientific knowledge rather than religious ignorance, and modernity and multi-culturalism being applied to the art of governance, and they dont like it at all.

Why?

Because all of this chips away at the advantages and privileges they have enjoyed for generations.  The actual or perceived loss of being special infuriates them.  Thus, they become willing henchmen for the siren's call of the rich and powerful:  "government bad!" which allows the oligarchs to steal the government away from We the People...

Of course, the concept that "the government is the problem" is a great big lie.

Even the most cursory glance into the history of the United States reveals this idea to be nothing more than a myth.  We the People of the United States, organized into our shared objectives in the form of the federal government, has achieved more in the last 238 years (as of this writing) than the rest of humanity has in the last thousand.  The progress that we, Americans, created has stunned, amazed, and revolutionized the world in ways that cannot be overlooked, ignored, and dismissed.  I may rail about unnecessary military adventurism, but I also have to admit that from the Continental Army all the way up to today, the American military has also been the world's policemen, and the world likes it that way.  From Lewis and Clark all the way up to the Apollo astronauts, Americans have led the world in courage, fortitude, and character when it comes to revealing new worlds of wonder.  Federally funded scientists have led the way in virtually all areas of science.  America's national parks are the envy of the world.  Our dams and bridges and interstate highway system was once one of the crowning achievements of mankind.  The American Post Office still is the benchmark by which all other such services around the world are measured.  When calamity strikes anywhere in the world, it is to the United States that people look to for aid.  Even people who just hours before were badmouthing the government cry for federal help when their world comes crashing down around them.  Oh yeah, and one more thing.

You know that internet thing that everyone talks about?  The one you're using right now?

It was invented, created, and initially funded by the US government.

And even more important than these triumphs were the times when the government was all that stood between some part of American culture and the corruption of our ideals.  When this happens, not everyone is happy with the government, especially those people who are asked -- forced sometimes -- to back down and let other people live as they want.  When a group of people takes a particular dislike to what another group of people are saying, or doing, or even just thinking, and move to actively stop them, it is the federal government whose job it is to stand in the way of the onrushing horde and say, "No.  They have a right to their freedoms just as you do, and your not liking them is no excuse."

Equality.  Justice.  Liberty for all.  The pursuit of happiness.  That's what its all about.

There are those out there who would love to thwart these ideals for other Americans, simply because they don't like the other Americans.  It is the job of the federal government to stand in the way and say, "No."

Racists don't like being told they had to treat black people and Hispanic people and other minorities like human beings.  Chauvenists don't like being told that they have to treat women as equals.  Homophobes don't like being told that they have to be forced to treat gay people as human beings.  Religious zealots don't like being told they have to tolerate people who believe differently than they do.  Polluters don't like being told they have to protect the environment.  Banks don't like being told that they can't run the economy like it was a casino.  Insurance companies don't like being told they can't deny their customers treatment or cancel their customers at will.

People even bitch about such petty things as having to wear their seatbelts or wear a motorcycle helmet.  It's always something.  There is no limit to the carping and griping and bitching that goes on about the government.

Sometimes the griping is warranted, such as the backlash against the Bush administration's utter failure to properly prepare and manage the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  For their failure to properly prepare for or react to Hurricane Katrina.  For the housing bubble, the bank bailouts, and, eventually, pretty much everything about the George W. Bush administration.  Still, its a long way from recognizing that one particular segment of the government, at one time, was really, really bad at governing to believing that all government, everywhere, is bad.

Study American history and you find that government actually works pretty well, and more virtuously, when its allowed to govern.  When it doesn't face a lot of interference from conservative business interests.  When the conservatives are in charge, they see to work to make sure their own negative prophecies regarding the "failure of government" come true.  The conservatives make the messes, the liberals then have to fight tooth and nail to clean those same messes up, while simultaneously being blamed by the conservatives for the messes they are cleaning.

So yeah.  The old saw about government being the problem is a huge lie.

Unless, of course, you're talking about a conservative-controlled government.