Newsgroups: alt.callahans

In alt.callahans, graydon@micor.ocunix.on.ca (Graydon) writes:

> HF.TXG@forsythe.stanford.edu (TJ) writes:
> 
> > In article <122420095@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM>,
> > daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom) writes:
> > >In alt.callahans, HF.TXG@forsythe.stanford.edu (TJ) writes:
> > >
> > >> However, I've found that it is personal enough. I have been told
> > >> that someone else knows better than I what is right for me and for
> > >> my children...
> > >
> > >Well there are people in the country who view fetuses as humans.
> > >With this assumption it is quite easy to see why they feel the
> > >state has the duty to protect fetuses.  People who assume that
> > >fetuses are not human are quite reasonable in asserting that
> > >the state has no right to interfere.
> > >
> > >The positions are not so hard to understand for someone of moderate
> > >thought.  What is not easy to understand is which side is
> > >RIGHT (tm).  Given that right cannot be determined, it is
> > >reasonable to expect that some democratic compromise is
> > >in order.  But this is one of those issues that brings out a
> > >great deal of fanaticism, and it is destroying the political
> > >process in this country.
> > 
> > I feel what is right is what is right for _you_. 

As is typical of people too close to the problem you ignored
what I said.  I agree with you that you should have choice,
but the people who do not agree think they are preventing
murder.  Murder is not something typically allowed by the
democratic process.

> >I'm not telling
> > other people to go out and do something they don't agree with, I'm
> > just saying that this is a supposedly Democratic country...let's try
> > and keep it that way.

A debate and a compromise over a tricky social issue is the
ESSENSE of democracy.

> > 
> > >
> > >> How come men don't have to deal with this, it isn't only
> > >> up to the woman to have children...we need sperm, i.e. men. No one
> > >> tells a man 'hey, you aren't allowed to wear those shorts, it will
> > >> cut off your sperm supply!' Lucky men...
> > >
> > >Men do not bear children, but do not be disingenuous.  Men have
> > >been drafted and sent of to DIE for a long bloody time, and
> > >there are other ways that men are abused by the system.  I
> > >understand and agree that the biological exigencies of women
> > >create an inequitable situation, but it is not honest at all
> > >to say that the state does not impose its will upon men
> > >as well.
> > >
> > I would like to know how. Women have not been allowed the choice
> > (that word again) to go out and fight for their country until
> > recently, now they do. 

Please look at your own word.  CHOICE.  I told you that men were
drafted to go and fight and die against their will.  This is murder.
It is murder that women have not been subject to.  The state DOES
impose its will upon men in this way.


> >My question is, how else does the system
> > abuse men? 

Other than the draft, there are not many examples of the kinds of abuse
that women go through, but a study of Michel Foucault might begin
to suggest to you how we are ALL subject to power structures of society.
You might be sophisticated enough to grant that men at the middle
and bottom of the power structures of a patriarchy still get oppressed.
Look at the experience of all peasants, male and female, in the
fourteenth century.  They regularly got slaughtered by knights.

The oppression of men in a place like America is less blatant, but
the draft is still a very good example.  There are probably others.
But I grant fully that they are not to the same degree as the
problems women face with the issue of pregnancy.


> > This is a male dominated society, _even_ marriage is a
> > man's idea (statistically men who are married live longer than men
> > who aren't, and vice versa for women.)

This is a lovely assertion.  I would like to see you PROVE it.
Who first suggested marraige, and was it a man?  In fact you have
no way to prove this regardless of how marraige was and is
used in the patriarchal system.  As far as I am concerned, marraige
is NOT a good trade for a few years of life.  I would rather
be single and die early.

> > 
> > >
> > >doug
> > 
> > Thanks Doug,
> > 
> > TJ
> 
> 
> Has it occured to you what the *cost* to all those dominant males
> is?  Every found a content and happy company vice-president?

Yes, but many women and minorities would love to have this problem.

doug