The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

8 responses to “Life is not fair to women: Discuss”

1. 

   tomsmith

   January 26, 2012

   It is another example of the constant push for communal over individual. The community approved world is quite explicitly biased in favour of women, minorities and so on because it is assumed that they have been actively persecuted under the old liberal order (which has been dead more than a century now). The bias in favour of these groups is nothing to do with true equality (equality of treatment, for example in law) which any liberal would have no problem with. It is instead based on the use of absolute material equality to right perceived historical wrongs and to punish previously favoured groups(i.e. successful people). Material equality is unnatural because people are different. Enforcing it requires treating people unequally.

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2. 

   Suboptimal Planet

   January 27, 2012

   As the proud father of a lovely baby girl (currently screaming), I commend you for another excellent post.
   My little one will find her way in the world according to her own interests, and her own merits.

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3. 

   Tom Paine

   January 27, 2012

   “old liberal order” is an interesting way of describing the era before the social-democratic state. I would argue that it wasn’t the political liberalism (in the proper sense of the word) that was the problem, but the social attitudes of the time. If there had been laws in relation to women’s rights then, they would have confined them to the kitchen sink. One of only two parts of the Communist Manifesto not currently law in Britain, for example, is about protecting women from having to work in coal mines. [The other is the part about putting the unemployed under military command and forcing them to work].

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4. 

   Tom Paine

   January 27, 2012

   I have two splendid daughters and no-one can be more feminist (in the proper sense of the word) than I. I oppose all remnants of the dead social attitudes that might impede their progress. But I don’t want them degraded by any “positive discrimination” laws that would deny them the sense of achievement I am confident their merits will earn.
   This is not about laws, but ideas. The great error of modern leftist thinking is that laws are educational tools. Laws are weapons, not blackboards, and re-education at the point of a gun is seldom effective. If second-rate specimens of any minority group are forced by law into jobs they don’t deserve, the resulting resentments are more likely to generate hostile attitudes than quell them.

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5. 

   Moggsy

   January 27, 2012

   You could say life is “institutionally” a bit “glass ceilinged” (don’t you love those sort of words?) when it comes to things that need an unbroken career progression.
   One of the main reasons is babies. Women often strangely consider babies and their families more important than being, say a politician. Maybe it is some biological imperative?
   Not that it does not seem to me that women often have more practical common sense than men. It seems to me that men are often big on theory, even when it does not always fit the actual facts, women (and maybe engineers) more on what works.
   It’s just that I think women often see the family unit as the most important thing and work hard to promote its interests including a husband’s career and the raising of their children are part of that. Our best and most lasting legacy are our children.
   So a male politicians career is often helped, or even protected by his wife and family. Having a family would maybe make things less easy for a female politician. I think women choose family more often than not.

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6. 

   Suboptimal Planet

   January 27, 2012

   Very well said!

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7. 

   jameshigham

   January 30, 2012

   Because special pleading by lobby groups is a primary cause of unnecessary legislation.
   Absolutely. In fact, if taken up, it’s discriminatory.

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8. 

   Single Acts of Tyranny

   February 8, 2012

   It seems to me that if a woman is not horribly ugly, knows what the inside of a gym looks like and ‘gets’ men, she can have more or less anything she wants. Thus I find that when they are moaning on about something or other, I cannot help but think “there’s an easier way you know”
   This may explain why so many of the lobbyists are quite so androgynous looking and plain unattractive bordering on repellent. That and they never seem to smile?

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