From: matt@smoke.brl.mil (Matthew Rosenblatt)
Newsgroups: misc.legal
Subject: Re: Skinhead speech protected, Supreme Court says (was: Re: Fuck You
Summary: Most women were better off in the '50's.
Keywords: Family wage
Date: 30 Sep 92 15:52:54 GMT
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Lab, APG MD.

In article <1992Sep27.212258.14848@Princeton.EDU> 
egnilges@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Edward G. Nilges) writes:

>In article <1992Sep27.190020.26055@fid.morgan.com> sethb@fid.morgan.com 
>(Seth Breidbart) writes:

>>Ed, what is this fixation you have about "right-thinking white
>>guy[s]"?  I said (and you can see it right above, where you quote it)
>>"anybody"; that clearly includes non-whites and non-guys.  I also said
>>(ditto) "whatever"; that clearly includes non-right-thinking (whatever
>>that is) statements.   [Seth Breidbart]

>I'm deconstructing the code.  Of course, the formal statement of rights
>applies to "anybody."  Because of power differentials, however, these
>rights (which in the code are to be applied with strict equality,
>avoiding any sort of "affirmative action") are unequally enjoyed.

>There is nothing mystical about this.  [Ed Nilges]

Nor is there anything necessarily bad about this, either.  Are we
supposed to have *unequal* rights in order to satisfy the ENVY and
RESENTMENT of those who come out holding the short end of the stick
under formally equal rights?  That's the argument of the quota-mongers.
It's a shame that President Bush bought that argument when he signed
the quota bill of 1991.

There's nothing wrong with unequal rights where a truly higher purpose
-- such as the well-being of our families and children -- is served.
But the assuagement of losers' ENVY and RESENTMENT is about the basest
purpose I can think of for having unequal rights.

>And the beauty part is that if I check my model against reality, I see
>that indeed the relative positions of blacks and women HAVE declined by
>many measures since the 1950s.  [Ed Nilges]

And here I thought that the average family income for married Black
couples outside the South was something like 99% of the average
family income for married white couples outside the South.  The
'50's were the days of White Citizens' Councils and church bombings
and "whites-only" laundromats (like the one I saw in New Orleans
as late as June '66), when public officers' speeches dripped with
the rhetoric of interposition and nullification.

In the case of women, though, Mr. Nilges is correct.  The "women's
lib" movement has brought advancement to an elite, while most women,
as well as their children, are worse off than their counterparts were
in the '50's:

>We gain the "freedom" to say many more things; this freedom is accessed
>soonest by Bob Guccione to make money off of women's bodies.  [Ed Nilges]

Mr. Guccione takes the image of women's bodies -- which are made 
in the image of G-d -- and turns it into something for his leering
customers to jerk off to.   He is not only an exploiter; he is a
blasphemous exploiter.

>Women gain the freedom to enter the workforce; because they
>systematically accept lower wages for comparable work than men because
>of low self-esteem (itself a product of sexism), American corporations
>of course prefer them for many jobs.  With the results, not totally
>happy, of displaced middle aged men and single parenthood.  [Ed Nilges]

The entry of women into the workforce has made it possible for the
capitalists to stop paying the "family wage" -- enough for one job
to support a family of five.  The "family wage" is something that
labor unions and women's groups strove for decades to make bosses 
pay, so that children and their mothers would not have to work 
in the sweatshops while the fathers worked in the mines and mills.
By FDR's time, the unions and women's groups had succeeded, and
their success endured through the '60's.  Then an unholy alliance
of multinational corporations shipping high-paying jobs overseas,
and hairy-legged Feminazis imposing Federal law to keep even *willing*
bosses from paying a father of three more than a single worker, 
killed the "family wage."  According to Allan C. Carlson, 

   "By 1976, only 40 percent of American jobs paid enough to 
  support a family of five in minimal comfort, not so long ago
  the standard measure of a fair wage.  Today [1988], the figure
  is close to 25 percent."  
            -- _Family Questions_ (New Brunswick, NJ: 
               Transaction Books, 1988), p. 135.

>It's simply not the case, in many if not most hiring
>decisions, that a man and a woman are compared and the highest-merit
>individual is hired (and it's not the case that the women is
>systematically favored because of some mythologically universal
>Affirmative Action.)  More and more the woman is hired because her
>per-hour or per-minute unit cost is lower; she'll work harder for less
>money, and she won't waste time in macho games.  [Ed Nilges]

She'll "work . . . for less money" -- just as she did in the days
of the sweatshops.  That's the free market in action.  The idea of
the "family wage" is that neither Australians (who originated it)
nor North Americans want the mothers of our children to be subjected
to the forces of the free market, drafted by penury into the labor
force while their neglected children suffer at home or in "day care"
institutions.  I've written my Congressman, Wayne Gilchrest of 
Maryland's First District, asking him to push to re-establish the
"family wage" in this country.

					-- Matt Rosenblatt
                                        (matt@amsaa.brl.mil)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TRUTH     JUSTICE     FREEDOM     YIDDISHKEIT     IVY     THE AMERICAN WAY