Weak Leftist argumentation and playing the victim / Follow-up: The purpose of women-only competitions vs. inclusion of trans athletes

To follow-up on a sub-theme from earlier today:

The Feminists vs. trans activists conflicts are a good example of the extreme “we are victims” pushing that is so common on the current Left. As destructive and tragic as this is when directed at the non-Left, men, Whites, whatnot, it becomes almost humorous when the one group of “victims” comes into conflict with another. Here, e.g., we have a virtual dialogue of:

Trans activist: We are the victims!

Feminist: No, we are the victims!

Trans activist: No, WE are the victims!!!

Feminist: NO, WE ARE THE VICTIMS!!!!!!

(Etc.)

It is particularly telling that there are many Feminists (or women in general?) who come out to protest certain behaviors today, when they are used by some other group(s) to gain advantages at the cost of Feminists/women—while the decades of use by Feminists, at the cost of others, never was deemed worthy of criticism. (Ditto, m.m., certain attitudes, certain lines of pseudo-argumentation, whatnot.)

This consistent pushing of “we are the victims” (and related/overlapping “us vs. them”, “X are evil oppressors”, “we are good; they are evil”, etc.) also shows the lack of factual arguments of the Left. The popularity of such tactics arises from the facts that (a) they work, and (b) the Left has no real arguments: With very few exceptions, Leftist factual arguments do not differ mainly in their degree of correctness, rationality, whatnot, but in how much inspection is needed before they turn out to be incorrect, irrational, or otherwise specious.

Apart from “we are the victims” (etc.), Leftists resort to sloganeering, emotional arguments, personal attacks, or even outright shouting, because they do not have the arguments on their side.

Indeed, even when the Left might have a reasonable argument, it resorts to these tactics over attempting that argument. Abortion* is a great** example. Here pro-abortionist could raise arguments about what should be considered life in a meaningful sense, what intelligence in a meaningful sense, where human rights should begin, whatnot, and what value any “preliminary” interests of a growing fetus should be given relative the interests of the mother-(not-)to-be.

*Discounting the question of whether abortion is truly a Leftist issue, as specifically the strong U.S. pro-abortion movement definitely is Leftist and the methods that it uses definitely those of the Left and/or Feminism. More generally, however, (a) conflicts around abortion are typically rooted in religious or, more rarely, philosophical objections, not “Left vs. Right”, (b) there is much less conflict in most other Western countries than in the U.S., and opponents to abortions in (at least!) the first trimester are very rare throughout the entire political spectrum in e.g. Sweden and Germany.

**So great that I find myself coming back to abortion for the umpteenth time, although I do not have a strong opinion on the underlying issue—just on the pseudo-argumentation of the Left around abortion.

Instead, the most common argument is a cheap slogan—which, to boot, entirely misses the point! Cf. e.g. My body, my choice—my ass! and note that it is actually the body of the fetus which is at stake. (Which is why the above areas of argumentation would be so much more valuable, relevant, and constructive.)

Lesser arguments include claims that pro-lifers want to “oppress women” (instead of preventing what they often see as murder), that access to abortions would be central to a woman’s rights/opportunities/whatnot,* and similar rhetoric—much of which falls exactly in categories like “we are the victims”. The post-Dobbs situation brought a number of examples, including misrepresentations of new U.S. abortion laws,** misrepresentation of the motivation of the court as anti-woman instead of pro-constitution, and, of course, the claim that Dobbs made abortion illegal—when it just moved the decision of legality back to the democratically elected law-makers in the individual states or, as case may have it, the federation.

*Another non sequitur, which overlooks factors like the option to avoid careless sex and to use contraceptives, that many women of the past did exceptionally well without abortions, that being pregnant and having a child need not be e.g. a career interrupter in most jobs in the current West, that it might be better for both mother and child with a birth now rather than in ten years, etc. (Note that women who do not want children at all, be it today or in ten or twenty years, can have a tubal litigation.)

**For instance, misrepresenting laws with rape and incest exemptions as not having such, misrepresenting laws with a time interval (e.g. the first trimester) with legal abortion as not having such a time interval, and misrepresenting these time intervals as more restrictive than e.g. those in Europe. This often along the lines of “abortion is now illegal in state X”, with no qualifications, where a truer statement might be “late-term abortion is now illegal in state X, unless the life of the mother is at risk, and unless the pregnancy arose through rape or incest”.

This while a strong-seeming argument, which I have mentioned myself in the past, seems to have stood on shaky legs from day one: that legal abortion avoids highly dangerous illegal abortions, with a correspondingly reduced risk to the women involved. Not only is there a problem with historical/propaganda claims likely being highly exaggerated,* but this also glosses over improved abortion technology, the existence of “plan b” pills, and better preventative methods compared to “yore”.

*I read some material on this around the time of Dobbs and/or the preceding leak, but do not remember where. A brief web search found e.g. [1] and [2], which appear to cover similar ground. (I do not vouch for the details of these pages. Note that both focus on misrepresentation around deaths, which does not rule out that there is a higher number of non-lethal complications.)

To this might be added how problems with abortions are glossed over, e.g. that there is a remaining physical risk to the woman (even with a modern and legal abortion), that some (many?) develop psychological issues in the aftermath, and that a too easy availability of abortion can lead to more careless behaviors. However, such glossing over is quite common in politics, even outside the Left, and exemplifies a more general problem of the politically active being more interested in convincing others than in finding the truth and refining their own opinions.

To look at another family of victim argumentation: I have recently heard several complaints about U.S. media using phrasings like “hit hardest by” to push a victim image. While I do not want to bagatellize the U.S. situation, it is worse in Sweden. In particular, there is a very clear division between how a male resp. female advantage/disadvantage in outcomes is handled (barring cases where e.g. an ascription to the “Patriarchy” or similar takes place): if women come out ahead, the formulation, with minor variation in detail, is “kvinnor är bättre på X” (“women are better at X”); if women come out behind, it is “kvinnor hårdast drabbade av X” (“women hit hardest by X”). A “män hårdast drabbade av X” (“men hit hardest by X”) I have seen once (!)—and I was so surprised that I almost fell off my chair. I have at least one prior reference to the topic (cf. [3])—from 2011.

Note that these formulations do not just have a one-sided “women are victims; men are not” take, but are also asymmetrical with regard to women’s success/failure: if women fail, it is because some external force has effected their failure; if they succeed, it is something that women have actively achieved through their own qualities.

To boot, there is often an odd angling where the situations of men and women are not measured according to the same standard, e.g. in that men are assumed to do something voluntarily and women something similar out of necessity or that the personal gain/cost is misrepresented. Note e.g. how [3] discusses proportions of children helping with housework and how what-more-girls-than-boys do for their own benefit is considered such help.* Also note (which I failed to do, myself, when writing [3]) that there is an asymmetry in how activities indoors (more stereotypically female) and outdoors (more stereotypically male) are handled: the indoor tasks are split over three or four entries,** while the outdoor ones are grouped into a single generic entry. (The “three or four” arises through “Takes care of siblings”, which could be seen as either an indoor task, for “four”, or a location-neutral task for “three”.) Moreover, the intensity and duration of a task is not given due consideration—contrast e.g. mowing the lawn with emptying the dishwasher.

*The original angle of [3] is “incompetent researchers”, and this might well be the truth of the matter; however, the contents otherwise fit well in the current context, and I have grown more open to “researchers had a hidden agenda” over the years.

**As quoted from the source. I suspect that the list is abbreviated, which could increase these “three or four” further, while the single generic outdoors entry would almost certainly remain a single entry.

Excursion on a likely “Jerusalem Post” victimizing distortion:
Earlier today, I encountered the claim that Jerusalem grocery bans women at certain times of the day. Deeper in the text, I found the more nuanced claim that men and women had different “special times”. If so, the headline severely distorts the situation in a “women are victims” manner, as there would equally be times when men are banned. In fact, the reverse headline “Jerusalem grocery bans men at certain times of the day” would have been equally justified. (I tried to find a better source to clarify this, with an eye at writing a text on the topic. Unfortunately, I found no such source and contend myself with this brief excursion. Note that much of Israel-internal news is in Hebrew, which I do not speak.)

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Nazis XVI: Misrepresentations of Nazis

Preamble: Once upon a time, I set out to write a single, if somewhat longer, text on why the Nazis should correctly be viewed as Leftists. Somehow, this turned into a never ending and ever expanding task, until I (a) was too tired of the topic to continue in force, (b) lost the overview of what I had already written, forgot what more I had intended to write, and otherwise lost track. With hindsight, I might have been better off writing a book on the topic, including through how this would have simplified content control and required more structure from early on. As is, the future of this text series is uncertain, but I do have a few drafts for additional texts lying around, many of them from the early period, which I will review and either reject or patch up into something publishable—but likely incomplete or of lower quality compared to the original intent. (I have already spent too much time on the topic.) The below is the first of these texts.

There are some more specific-than-is-far-Right issues* where the Nazis are regularly misrepresented, often with an eye at discrediting others through guilt by association.

*I will not attempt a complete list, as this would involve additional and likely considerable leg-work.

Consider e.g. the claim that the Nazis were anti-abortion (as are the U.S. Republicans; ergo, …):

It is true that the Nazis strongly opposed abortion of healthy “Aryan” babies, but they did not do this due to convictions about abortion—they did so in order to ensure a growing population of these healthy “Aryans”.

On the contrary, they were very much in favor of abortion when it came to e.g. Jews—in order to keep the unwanted portions of the population down.

Abortion, per se, was neither wrong nor right to the Nazis—it was a tool to be used or not used as suited the Nazi goals.

In stark contrast, a typical position among U.S. “pro-lifers”, even when Republican, is that abortion, in and by it self, is wrong, regardless of whether the baby is White or Black. Indeed, in the wake of “Dobbs”, I saw repeated mentions of how restrictions on abortion could increase the Black population share, as Blacks are more likely to have abortions than Whites, which puts the very allegedly anti-Black Republicans on the side of Black lives and the equally allegedly pro-Black Democrats in opposition to Black lives. Moreover, many Democrats argue strongly in favor of abortion in order to combat e.g. Down’s syndrome. Who, then, is truly closer to the Nazi position?

In other cases, the reason might be more to build a fictitious distance between the Nazis and the (usually) Leftist speaker, as with e.g. an alleged pro-Capitalist or anti-union angle to Nazi politics. This from very early own, if originally to discredit the Nazis (!) through guilt by association, as with the “Agent Theory”.* However, Capitalism and Capitalists, just like abortion, were just tools to the Nazis—tolerated as long as they cooperated with the Cause and with no care for what individual business owners might be crushed by the turning wheels of the Nazi state. As to free markets, the Nazis did their best to obliterate them by e.g. increasingly centralizing and merging various businesses**, setting production targets and prices, and similar.

*A remark in the draft refers to a deeper discussion of Nazis vs. Capitalism for more detail. This discussion has not yet taken place (it might or might not follow later), but some discussion of the anti-Capitalist take of the Nazis’ 25-point plan is present in the entries dealing with said plan. The “Agent Theory” amounts to the idea that the Nazis were shills for Big Business, pretending to be Leftist to fool the working class.

**Incidentally, a recurring issue with Leftism, including e.g. the Soviet Union and China, but also e.g. Sweden (cf. excursion).

Unions, on the other hand, were a potential obstacle to the Cause and the Gleichschaltung and a potential competitor for the support of the people—as the Polish Communists were later to learn at the hands of Solidarity and Lech Walesa. To the degree that Nazis were antagonistic to the unions, it was not a matter of e.g. profit-seeking industrialists vs. struggling minimum-wage laborers—it was a matter of political power, control of the people, and meeting state-set production targets. The concerns of the unions were subjugated to the overall political goals—just like the concerns of the Capitalists—and like with businesses there was a massive consolidation, leaving only one (?), Nazi controlled, union. Besides, who needs unions when you have a Führer to ensure that wages and working conditions are fair? Contrast this with, e.g., Thatcher’s and Reagan’s anti-union positions, which stemmed from issues like union excesses and destructive behavior, distortions of the free markets, and whatnot—the unions as a problem for a free society, not as an obstacle to a totalitarian one.*

*And, yes, there were often objective problems, up to and including massive criminal involvement in some U.S. unions. Or consider “you may not change a light-bulb if you belong to the wrong union” regulations. Or consider physical attacks on non-strikers. Or consider the horrifyingly Luddite British printers’ unions.

Oh, and unions in e.g. the USSR? Transformed into indoctrination vehicles in the service of the Communist party… (Again, a much stronger Nazi–Communist parallel than e.g. any Hitler–Thatcher parallel.)

Excursion on Sweden and centralisation:
Under Social-Democrat rule, Sweden was unusually set on creating or favoring very large businesses. This included a strong drive towards state-owned businesses, artificial monopolies, and selective state support. A particularly perfidious approach was the “solidarisk lönepolitik” (“solidary wage-politics”), which included a state and union driven attempt to keep the wage level constant over different businesses by holding wages back relative their natural level* in more profitable businesses**, while letting them rise above their natural level* in unprofitable businesses. This with the deliberate (!) goal that the latter would go bankrupt faster, after which the former would be able to suck up the newly unemployed.

*I.e. the level that would have resulted from fair negotiations and market forces. Note that problems with this include not just the premature or maybe even avoidable bankruptcies mentioned in the main text, but also issues like misallocation of workers and a lesser differentiation between competent, conscientious, or otherwise high-value workers and their opposites, as a business that merely reduces its scope will try to keep the quality employees, while a business that disappears will indiscriminately put all its employees on the street. (An issue additionally worsened by various other rules, like a mandated “last in; first out” approach to partial lay-offs.)

**Which tend to already be among the largest or the fastest growing. If in doubt, after sufficiently many bankruptcies among the competitors, the survivors were likely to have grown large by expanding in the resulting vacuum.

I am unclear on the exact underlying motives for this push towards very large companies in so many Leftist countries, but I do suspect that it is partially one of facility: Firstly, to influence or outright control a single, or just a few, businesses in any give field is easier than doing so with many businesses. Secondly, once that glorious day for outright nationalization finally is here, it will be so much easier with fewer businesses. Another suspicion of mine is that fewer businesses mean fewer owners and entrepreneurs and more employees, which might make for a population demographic more likely to favor Leftist policies.

(The above is not be confused with the long-term international trend towards bigger business, e.g. through mergers, economies of scale, and growing markets in the wake of globalization.)

Follow-up: Nazis VI: Excursion on Roe v. Wade and the Nazi-attitude of the Left

The actual overturning* of Roe v. Wade has now taken place—and the Left has done everything that it can to prove its Nazi-attitude. We are simply and plainly reaching a point where it is disputable whether the Left can ever again be considered politically legitimate, where, drawing on the hypocrisy of Marcuse,** we might be forced to simply stop tolerating it, where even an ardent supporter of free-this-and-that must contemplate the possibility that McCarthy had the right general idea.***

*For details of the overturning, see “Dobbs” (PDF), with multiple convincing opinions in favor of the decision. (Yes, I have, apart from appendices, read them.)

**The promised text will probably follow at some point during the summer. In short—by their own words, they are condemned: The Left is (and was, even at Marcuse’s time of writing) the greater source of intolerance and often by a very large distance; if we must not tolerate the intolerant, then we must not tolerate the Left.

***Without necessarily agreeing with the details of his opinions and methods.

This includes:

1. Unprovoked* threats of and attempts at violence against the SCOTUS.

   *No, a legally correct finding of law, correcting a previous gross error, is not provocation. (Also note below remarks on misrepresentation by the Left.) Even if it were, by some absurd stretch of the imagination, the following two items concern persons and entities that did make the finding.

2. Unprovoked violence and riots directed at the public, including and especially “pro-lifers”.
3. Unprovoked acts of violence against the state of Arizona* (and maybe some other governmental entities) that go far beyond the alleged “insurrection” of the January-6 victims, including attempts to storm the Arizona Capitol.

   *If there is a particular reason for Arizona, as opposed to e.g. Mississippi (the victorious party in Dobbs), I have missed it.

4. Calls to delegitimize or abolish the SCOTUS for actually doing its job–and for actually relinquishing (!) arrogated powers back to the legislative branch and the individual states.
5. Calls for undemocratic and in-violation-of-separation-of-powers attempts to circumvent the decision. (As opposed to legitimate law changes—which the SCOTUS would not object to.)
6. Gross and often obviously deliberate misrepresentations of what the decision contains, what it implies, and what the motivations of the court were—and often such that have spread to international media.

   Here I point to my original text for details of the ideas, but note in short that the decision does not make abortion illegal, but moves the choice back to the democratically elected state parliaments—as opposed to the appointed federal justices. Any state that wants to keep abortion legal can do so; a sufficient majority of the states and congress could even add an amendment to create the same effect as “Roe” once had.

   (I would go as far as to argue that the central issue at hand in Dobbs was not abortion at all, but Leftist judicial activism versus non-Leftist attempts to preserve the constitution, the division of powers, and the states’ rights—or, equally, Leftist dictatorial methods versus non-Leftist democratic ones.)

7. Gross and often obviously deliberate misrepresentations of the availability of abortion (both before and after) relative the rest of the world. (The U.S. had among the laxest laws in the world, much of the U.S. still has and will have, and even the Mississippi law tested in Dobbs was entirely unremarkable internationally.)

Violence, intimidation, lies, …—very Nazi.

Excursion on a weakness in Dobbs:
In my impressions so far, there is a small weakness in Dobbs. This weakness is outweighed by far by the sum of argumentation, but might be worth noting:

Going counter to the principle of “stare decicis” must consider the effect on those who might have relied on the previous ruling(s). This is done with regard to pregnant or potentially pregnant women, but the issue of abortion clinics/physicians/whatnot is not* discussed. It is for instance possible that someone has invested half a fortune in setting up a clinic—and that this clinic suddenly is forced to severely reduce its business and/or to branch into other fields, because a dormant state law now becomes active again.

*Or only superficially: There is a mountain of text and I might not have been at full concentration throughout.

(No, I do not have sympathies for this type of clinic, but everyone is equal in front of the law.)

Feminism as a one-sided women’s rights movement (a.k.a never not rotten)

A while back, I wrote:

In reality, Feminism is, and always has been, a one-sided women’s rights movement, which has rarely shown much concern for men’s rights or for equal responsibilities and equal duties. (Here, I wanted to reference a recently encountered and very informative text by someone else, which likely was https://antifeministpraxis.com/2017/03/31/feminism-was-never-not-rotten/; however, this link currently leads to a message of “This domain expired”. For a semi-replacement, see a text on Ellen Key. For issues with more modern Feminism, see any number of earlier texts.)

Since then, I have found a link to the missing contents through an archiving service—and I strongly recommend it to my readers:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191009062955/https://antifeministpraxis.com/2017/03/31/feminism-was-never-not-rotten/

(In addition, just in case, I will reproduce the full text below.)

Doing some additional research, I found a few other interesting links, including:

1. A review of “There’s No Place Like Work” by Brian C. Robertson.

   Some claims made in the review are quite interesting, e.g. that:

   The first [misconception] is that the women’s movement of the 19th Century was like its 20th Century counterpart, an effort to liberate women from the bondage of housewifery.

   The facts show exactly the opposite. Women’s organizations throughout that century fought to liberate women not from the kitchen but from the workplace.

2. A series of excerpts from “Woman and the law; a comparison of the rights of men and the rights of women before the law” (1875!) by Russell H. Conwell, which deal extensively with a surprising favoring of women over men in the U.S. 19th century, e.g. that:
   

   She may be worth a million, and he have nothing but his labor; yet he must support her in good style, and supply the needs of the family from his wages, without assistance from her. If both together commit a trespass, or assault, or any like misdemeanor, he is punished and she excused. Worse than that is the law whereby the husband is punished for any wrongful act of the wife in his presence, although it might have been beyond his power to prevent it. If she strikes a man, the recipient of the blows has no right to strike back unless to save his life, and her husband must pay for the damage by fine or imprisonment.

3. Excerpts from works by Belfort Bax, “The Fraud of Feminism” (1913!) and “The Legal Subjection of Men” (1908!). (The titles should be self-explanatory.)

Disclaimer: All the aforementioned authors and books were previously unknown to me. I do not vouch for their quality, beyond the excerpts encountered, nor for their correctness. (If I find the time, I might do some deeper reading later.)

In addition, if off topic, I found a brilliant and brilliantly mocking series of texts on “Why I don’t take feminists seriously” by Mike Adams of Townhall, which shows much of what is wrong with modern Feminism. See respectively part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII.

As an aside, with an eye at a few earlier texts on abortion, I note him quoting (in part VII) a deranged-seeming woman saying

And the baby, when it is inside of her, is her body.

If this is taken to imply that the baby is actually part of “her” body, and if this horrifying ignorance is common among women/feminists/pro-abortionists/whatnot, it would explain quite a lot about that idiotic slogan “my body; my choice”. The baby is, by any even remotely reasonable standard, a separate entity in a separate body, only connected over the umbilical cord, with its own DNA and (beyond a certain point) own brain, heart, and whatnot. To see the baby as a part of the woman’s body, similar to an appendix, is as untenable as considering a human in a car a part of that car or a human on a dialysis machine a part of that machine. (In contrast, if mere ownership is implied, this ownership claim is extremely dubious, as noted in one of the previous texts.)

The same deranged-seeming woman also made claims about the baby as a parasite, which are, at best, highly misleading (but not unknown to me from others): A parasite is something that deliberately* exploits something or someone else against the nature and will of the something or someone, and to the disadvantage of that something or someone. The baby, on the other hand, has been put in the womb without having a say in the matter, almost* always by an act of and by the mother (!), in correspondence with the nature of both the mother and the womb, and it usually is (has until recently been?) considered a good or very good thing by the mother, herself. (This entirely apart from any arguments about the relative value of humans vs. e.g. hookworms.)

*Where “deliberately” should be seen in an extended sense. That hookworm is following its in-built reactions without true thought.

**Rape would be a rare exception. However, even an accidental and/or unwanted pregnancy through consensual sex is self-inflicted by the mother, be it by negligence or through taking a risk and having bad luck.

Finally, the full text of “Feminism was never Not Rotten” by Karen Straughan (a.k.a. GirlWritesWhat). (With reservations for loss of e.g. formatting through copy-and-paste.)

Years ago, when I embarked on my investigation into the feminist movement and what it has become, I subscribed to the understanding that there had once existed a magical age of feminism. Of course I did. It was common knowledge, even among anti-feminists, that early feminism was a noble and well-intentioned movement, and that somewhere along the way it was hijacked by lunatics and man-haters bent on female supremacy.

I was curious as to exactly when, and by what means, this virtuous movement had been corrupted, so I went on something of an archaeological expedition, digging through piles of documents and old news articles and treatises from as far back as the late 1800s and earlier, transcripts of speeches given by well-known suffragettes like Susan B. Anthony.

My unexpected findings were as follows: Feminism has never been a righteous movement seeking equality. The “noble” Suffragettes were soaked in sexism, classism, racism, eugenics enthusiasm and the mindless pursuit of female privilege. The Declaration of Sentiments, widely believed to be the official manifesto of the First Wave, was nothing more than a hate-filled screed, simultaneously indicting and convicting the male sex of the wholesale criminal enslavement and subjugation of all women, through all of history.

I found a First Wave populated by terrorists and elitists who did little to conceal their malice, dishonesty and thirst for power. They were skilled at isolating any given statute from its full context and declaring it as discrimination against women, even when the overall set of laws to which it belonged conferred immense privilege on women. And always, their “reforms” focused on the one, isolated statute, always leaving those privileging women untouched.

They sought, and received, the automatic right of mothers to custody of children after divorce, but did nothing to change the financial obligation of fathers to provide all material necessities to said children.

They sought, and received, the right within marriage to hold and keep their own property and income untouchable by their husbands, but did nothing to change the legal obligation of husbands to financially support their wives, to pay their wives taxes, or to repay their wives debts.

They sought, and received, the right to vote, but did nothing to change the civic obligations of men toward the state, including military conscription, which had informed the primary justifications for universal male suffrage, nor did they campaign to impose any such obligations on women.

And through every effort on the part of those early feminists ran a vein of resentment, blame and indifference toward men. Resentment of “privileges” that were bought and paid for by men through their formal obligations to others. Blame cast on men for single-handedly constructing the entire system with no care or concern for women’s wellbeing, safety or happiness, seats in lifeboats nothwithstanding. Indifference to the responsibilities imposed on men by this same system, or the male sacrifice, hardship and suffering which resulted.

While men were dying in their thousands to win the right to form a union and earn enough to support their wives and children, early feminists were campaigning for a woman’s right to take a man’s children away from him through separation or divorce, and still enjoy the same access to his wallet she’d become accustomed to in marriage.

While men were dying in their millions to protect societies in which most men didn’t have the vote, early feminists were terrorizing and injuring innocent civilians, demanding votes for women.

I was, to be honest, appalled by the entitlement of those early feminists, and by the nonchalance with which they portrayed men, as a sex, as not just capable of, but guilty of, treating their own wives, sisters, mothers, and daughters with sociopathic disregard. Little wonder these selfish, elitist, divisive women were, contrary to the revisionist history we’ve all been fed, no more popular among ordinary women back then than their modern counterparts are today.

A friend of mine has said that modern feminism is simply feminism without the mask. But my investigations showed me that feminism has never worn a mask. It has never needed to conceal the bitter core of hatred, blame, prejudice and supremacy that form its nucleus

Suffragettes were notorious domestic terrorists, lobbing bombs, lacing letter boxes with acid, setting fire to train stations, and even attempting to assassinate the British Prime Minister. But far from attempting to conceal their crimes, they relied on traditional notions of chivalry to shield themselves from the consequences of their actions. And the very subjects of their ceaseless hate campaign — men — eventually gave them everything they wanted, and more.

Pretending that First Wave feminism was virtuous not only erases the systemic injustices of which they were the primary architects, it erases the anti-male resentment and blame that have always infected the roots of the movement. It’s time we stop idealizing them, and begin seeing the entirety of feminsism for what it really is.

History is written by the victors, and feminism has been on a winning streak since its inception. Within that official history we are told only good things about the “brave women who risked their lives for women’s equality”. Some may find it deeply upsetting to discover that feminism has never been the righteous movement we’ve been told it was, but we have a moral obligation to examine political movements and history with our rose-tinted glasses off before we form an opinion. To do otherwise is to indulge in the wishful thinking of children.

Leftist lack of insight, abortion, and Nazis.

In the wake of [1] and [2], I have spent some further time contemplating abortion. A particular sub-issue is the sometime “pro-choice” puzzlement as to why some “pro-lifers” are so upset. (It self somewhat puzzling and hypocritical in light of the enormous emotionality and quasi-religious take often displayed by the “pro-choice” faction.)

The answer is (or should be) blindingly obvious:

As a thought experiment, let us assume that someone finds out that a Nazi-style extermination is taking place on U.S.* soil, often using taxpayers’ money, where unwanteds are rounded up, sent to camps, and killed by the hundreds or even thousands, day in and day out. Chances are that this someone (regardless of whether Republican, Democrat, “pro-life”, “pro-choice”, whatnot) would be horrified—absolutely and utterly horrified. Reactions like letters to newspapers and congressmen, fund raising, protest marches, law suits, even sabotage or violence might follow. Moreover, chances are that these reactions would be considered perfectly normal, that, if anything, those reacting less strongly would be considered deficient.

*Respectively, a country where the reader is a citizen and/or a resident.

Now consider abortion from the point of view of someone who sees human life, dignity, rights, whatnot as beginning at an early stage, e.g.* in the belief that God installs a soul at the moment of conception or at the moment of quickening. The parallels between the U.S. abortion industry and the above Nazi-style extermination would be very strong, and a similar reaction against them would be entirely expected.

*A religious angle is the most obvious, but by no means the only one. As I have repeatedly stated, the core issue of abortion is when human rights (or a suitable subset of them) are acquired, and it is by no means necessary to be religious to put that point at e.g. conception or quickening.

In other words, there is not the slightest reason for the “pro-choicers” to be puzzled. That many still are, points to a severe inability to consider an issue from different perspectives and to understand the motivations of others.

(I have indeed often observed such an inability among humans, in general, and women and members of the Left, in particular. Emotional sympathies over a sob-story, yes; a true understanding, no.)

In a twist, I suspect that a scenario half-way between the above two would have the Left climbing the walls: What if Nazis gained power and began to order abortions of babies that they, not the mother, considered unwanted?

My body, my choice-my ass!

In the wake of a text on the Roe v. Wade leak, I have spent some thoughts on that ridiculous and ridiculously self-serving “my body, my choice” slogan. The main problem, which should immediately disqualify it, is that it is actually the body of the fetus at stake—and the core question is when and when not this fetus should be considered a human being, or sufficiently far along the way to have similar rights. (Other questions include when a right to live might be trumped by a danger to the mother and how pragmatical concerns like the risk for “back-alley” abortions should be handled.) As I have noted in the past, abortion is a highly complicated issue, involving e.g. ethics, medicine, and (for many) religion. To reduce this complicated issue to a cheap slogan (and a slogan that misses the point, at that) is inexcusable.

To this repetition, I would like to add two of the scenarios that I have considered these few days:

1. To illustrate contradictions in thought and consequences when the baby has no rights:

   Two women (A and B) become pregnant at roughly the same time. They spend a few months doing what pregnant women do, be it having morning sickness, shopping for baby clothes, or working in the office.

   Then, again at roughly the same time, the following happens:

   Woman A suddenly decides that she does not want a baby and has an abortion—my body, my choice.

   Women B is peacefully walking down the street, as she fantasizes about first steps and first words, while visibly pregnant. A stranger comes up and bashes her stomach with a baseball bat. The prospective mother survives with no major injuries, but the baby dies.

   Now, in the second event:

   What charges should be filed? Just assault and battery (and/or something else on a similar level) for attacking woman B? Or do we include a murder charge for the dead baby?

   If we forego the murder charge, chances are that the punishment for the perpetrator will be a slap on the wrist in comparison to what most, including, I suspect, a vast majority of pro-abortionists, would consider reasonable. If a first time offender, and if the assault and battery is judged as any similar incident without a (born or unborn) baby involved, a sufficiently contrite or contrite-appearing perpetrator might even be out on probation once the verdict is read—and might have walked the streets on bail before that.

   If we do go with a murder charge, how could we justify not filing a murder charge for woman A concerning the first event? Do we presuppose that woman A had some absolute ownership of the baby, transcending any rights that it might have had? If so, why just woman A and not the father too?* How is this compatible with a “no slavery” or “humans are not property” position?**

   *Note that a father typically has no say, beyond what the mother might allow him, in abortion decisions—and certainly none according to “my body, my choice”.

   **Systems have existed where children were the virtual property of their parents. Such systems have also tended to view the wife as the virtual property of the husband or otherwise contained elements that the Left condemns as outdated, barbaric, or whatnot. Child-as-property could also include a teenage daughter being given to a friend, as Lord Capulet intended. Be careful what you wish for.

   What alternatives do we have? Forego the murder charge, but charge the perpetrator with e.g. property damage, as if that blow had struck a car? File a pure civil suit for damages? (Which will likely remain unpaid, even if the civil suit is won, as the perpetrator is unlikely to be very wealthy.)

   I suspect that something along the lines of property damage, if maybe with a more euphemistic name, would be the necessary consequence, if a “my body, my choice” logic is applied to abortion. Could the average woman live with that? All those pro-abortionists? How does that match up with the ostensible ideology of e.g. the U.S. Democrats?

   For a slightly different perspective, assume that woman A is the perpetrator from the second event. Apart from the assault-and-battery part, how was her bat-abortion of woman B’s child different or worse from her own, regular, abortion? The two babies were at approximately the same stage of development and the same level of self-awareness and intelligence.* They had approximately the same future potential (see excursion) to become grown-ups, study, have a career, found a family of their own. They each had no say in their own demise. They were both killed by the same person.** From their point of view, any injustice done to the one must have equalled that done to the other. The only true difference is their relationship to that same killer.

   *That this level was low is unimportant for this comparison. The point is the similarity.

   **Presumably per instigation in the case of woman A’s own baby, with some type of medical practitioner performing the actual act. In doubt, this need for a third party might disappear over time, without affecting the overall problem under discussion.

2. To illustrate that other parties than the mother (and the baby) might have rights and interests:

   A couple has no children and great problems conceiving. The husband has no greater wish than for a child (yes, this has been known to happen). The respective parents of the unhappy couple have no other children and only this chance for grandchildren—of which they have dreamt for decades. The wife is approaching menopause and, in desperation, the others all chip in for a (very expensive) in-vitro fertilization. The procedure is successful and everyone is happy for a few months, showering the wife with attention and baby gifts.

   Then the wife unilaterally decides to have an abortion—my body, my choice.

   With that, the hopes, dreams, and money invested of the others is gone, without their having a say, at the whim of someone else.

   Maybe the others could sue* for their money back, but this might do more harm than good, even if successful, and might hit the husband as hard as the wife. As to being successful, there is certainly no guarantee.

   *The likelihood that this type of woman would pay it back voluntarily is minuscule.

   Concerning children, the wife’s parents are entirely out of luck, while the husband and his parents might still have some chance through a divorce and a remarriage. Divorces, however, are messy and costly,* there is no guarantee of finding a suitable new wife, and the husband might still love the old wife—no matter how foolish this might seem, at this stage.

   *And I could see how this would play out in court: a “That sexist bastard just wants to divorce me because I exercised my rights as a woman. Sob! Sob!” followed by a “Poor dear! Here, have a tissue—and the house, and the car, and a large alimony!”.

The second case is also an illustration of the general need to consider the rights and interests of others, even when not encoded in law, as well as any ethical or moral obligations than we might have towards others. I would consider a widespread failure to do this one of the greatest problems in the modern world—and, yes, in my impressions so far, the problem is more common among women. (Some earlier discussion and examples can be found in e.g. [1] and [2].)

Excursion on treatment of humans vs. animals:
If we were to go strictly by criteria like level of intelligence and self-awareness, we would be hard pressed to justify treating many humans better than animals. Consider small children, severely mentally disabled adults, and the highly senile vs., say, dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants, or, sometimes, even dogs and horses.

Now, if we do not have such a justification, we would have to either treat animals better* or live in an even more dystopian world than the current.

*Which would be fine with me, but is likely practically unrealistic. For instance, how many would truly be prepared to spend as much to save the life of the family dog as the life of one of the children?

If we do seek a justification, what would it be? A Christian might argue that a human has a soul and an animal does not, but the rest of us have to find a justification elsewhere. Potential would often be a good way that can be made consistent, e.g. in that an infant is rated over a dog, because the child might grow up to be something far beyond what the dog could ever reach. This might not be enough to solve the case of the highly senile and the severely mentally disabled, but these are, at least, fewer.

Alternatives? Well, we could postulate some type of inherent superiority of humans, but what is to prevent, in a next step, an inherent superiority of human group X over human group Y? We could, similarly, postulate a “we humans need to stick together—humanity over fairness”, but then we again have that second step with human group X vs. human group Y. (Of course, with regard to the above comparison of babies, they would still be equal with regard to any such postulates in lieu of potential.)

Suggestions are welcome.

Excursion on “free”* this and that:
Many women, Feminists in particular, seem to consider both IVF and abortion something that others should pay for, e.g. within a health-insurance scheme. A slight modification of the second scenario shows how problematic this can be, both with regard to fairness and to incentives: Say that the IVF is paid for by the wife’s insurance—and then she has an abortion paid for by her insurance. This would not only be a gigantic waste of someone else’s money and money that could have been used much better, but a waste that is much more likely to occur in a paid-by-someone-else scheme than when the woman has to carry the cost herself.

*I.e. paid by someone else, usually taxpayers or other insurance members.

Of course, if we do say that a woman has the right to tens of thousands of taxpayer/insurance money to cover IVF, because having a child is sooooo important, how could she deny her husband the right to use her womb for just a few months more? Those who would grant the woman “free” IVF but, absent medical complications, deny the husband would show a grave hypocrisy.

Excursion on a potential duty to have children:
I would not go as far as to stipulate a duty for a woman (or, m.m., a man) to have children to satisfy a husband or a parent,* but I would stipulate that both spouses do have a duty to make an aversion (ditto the physical inability) to having children crystal clear before a marriage takes place—possibly, even before a long-term relationship. For a marriage to result in children is the default assumption, arguably, even, the point of marriage; and unwillingness to live up to this simply must be communicated in advance. Should this unwillingness not have been communicated, then I would see an ethical (if unenforceable) obligation to put the unwillingness aside. This includes, if need be, dropping any “my body, my choice” attitude.

*Note that the second scenario is deliberately constructed to include both a prior willingness on behalf of the woman and a monetary investment on behalf of the others, which was made in light of this prior willingness.

(How to handle an aversion that has arisen during the marriage is a tricky question, and would likely need to be handled on a case-by-case basis. Having insufferable children next door seems too little; nearly dying because of complications during a failed prior pregnancy seems enough.)

Nazis VI: Excursion on Roe v. Wade and the Nazi-attitude of the Left

Preamble: Keep in mind that this text concerns various abuses, e.g. of the SCOTUS, and odd attitudes around abortion—not whether abortion, it self, is good or bad resp. should be legal or illegal.

The recent “Roe v. Wade (RW) will be overturned” leak is a good reason to illustrate some similarities in attitude between the Nazis and even some Leftist groups (including the current U.S. Democrats) often considered “mainstream” or “moderate Left”.*

*I do not consider “moderate Left” a very reasonable label for (at least, large parts of) the current U.S. Democrats; however, it certainly matches the typical self-portrayal. The “mainstream” claim might well be true, but is then a negative sign for the Left as a whole, more than a positive sign for the Democrats.

1. The original RW decision illustrates the use of the courts as a tool to press the preferred ideology and to engage in judicial activism—the courts become a tool for the Cause, not the instrument for fairly and impartially applying the law that they were intended to be. By all appearances, RW was poorly reasoned, lacked constitutional justification, and served to achieve a political and/or quasi-legislative purpose—neither of which should be the realm of the courts. Keep in mind that judicial activism within a democracy is not just undemocratic but outright anti-democratic.

   To this, note that the pro-abortionists would have been perfectly entitled to suggest a constitutional amendment,* which, if passed, would have reached the same result in an acceptable manner. If it did not pass? Well, if so, it would have not passed within a democratic framework, implying that the SCOTUS-of-reality had not only violated the separation of powers but also the will of the people by its decision, making this piece of judicial activism the more worthy of condemnation and repeal.

   *Or maybe even a “regular” law. (I am not certain how far a regular federal law could stretch in a case like this. They could certainly have lobbied for regular laws in the individual states.) Of course, RW was decided on (flawed) constitutional grounds, which makes a constitutional amendment the natural comparison.

   Further note that many who oppose RW do so because of aspects like its dubious reasoning and its quasi-legislative effect—not necessarily because they would be opposed to abortion, per se. (A distinction, unfortunately, which the Left is either unable or unwilling to make. See excursion for my own take.)

2. The debate (or, often, “debate”) around RW and the straw-men presented by the Left illustrate reality distortion and evil propaganda on the Nazi level. This includes much of the Leftist reactions to the leak.

   Consider e.g. the claim that overturning RW would make abortion illegal. This is a severe distortion that could send many ignorants into a panic. In reality, it would remove a federal ban on state bans and move the decision whether to allow abortion back to the states. Some states would subsequently institute bans; others would not. If they do institute bans, it would be within a democratic framework, and a woman would always have the option to leave for another state to have an abortion. (I cannot know now in detail what would be in the future bans, but I fully expect most, maybe all, to contain reasonable exemptions, e.g. in cases of rape or medical issues that threaten the life of the presumptive mother. This would weaken the panic-making claims further.)

   Or consider how opposition to RW is construed as attacks on women or women’s rights. Again a severe distortion: the point of overturning RW is not to attack women, or even to attack abortion, but to remove a poor SCOTUS decision and to restore the status quo ante. (Many Republicans or “pro-lifers” on the street might have an anti-abortion motivation, but they are not on the Supreme Court or, in most cases, even lawyers. More importantly, extrapolating “anti-abortion” to e.g. “anti-woman” is a truly despicable straw-man even in their case.)

   Equally important, if less obvious in the debates, is overlooking secondary aspects, most notably the rights of the states in relation to the federation. Since the creation of the Union, there has been a continual drift of influence and rights from the individual states to that Union, in a manner that has often been constitutionally dubious, has been very contrary to what e.g. Thomas Jefferson envisioned, and might well have gone past what even the old Federalists would have welcomed. Most of the time,* this drift has been for the worse, and the COVID-era, e.g. through Florida and DeSantis and their attempts to protect the civil rights violated on the federal level, has shown how important it is to have some degree of rights for the states. Overturning RW would be a small step towards turning the tide. (Or, sadly, to temporarily delay it.)

   *A notable exception is the extension of the “Bill of Rights” to the states. Even here, however, it would have been better, had this extension taken place through amendments to the respective state constitutions on a voluntary basis.

   Similar arguments apply to distortions around abortion it self, e.g. through cheap cliches like “My body, my choice” that ignore central aspects of the issue, notably that it is the body of the fetus at stake. (Sloganeering is, of course, something that was very prominent among the Nazis and is ever recurring among Leftist groups.)

3. Abortion, it self, has been turned into a quasi-religious* issue comparable to some of the Nazi excesses—to the point that some seem to consider abortion outright virtuous. (Like a “Lebensborn” in reverse.) I have even seen claims that rising abortion rates would be a sign of societal progress or of women’s rights improving, which is not just a non sequitur, but also borders on the sickening.

   *Not to be confused with the actually religious take of many, but by no means all, “pro-lifers”. These have still, so far, appeared less fanatic to me.

   Or consider the drive towards “free” (i.e. paid by tax payers) abortion. Outside rape and occasional medical complications, this borders on the absurd. Even assuming that abortion is allowed: If a woman is sloppy with prevention or changes her mind after the fact, she should carry the costs and consequences—not the taxpayers. (And certainly not the taxpayers who oppose abortion in the first place.) This should be so obvious, even to a pro-abortionist, that another reason must be sought.*

   *However, there also appears to be a globally widespread Feminist drive that someone else should pay for everything remotely medical that a woman needs. For instance, I have heard demands that health “insurance” (making a mockery of the word) should cover contraceptive pills or that employers should be forced to provide free tampons in the women’s bathroom. (To what degree these demands have been successful is unclear to me.)

   Or what of the drive towards “late term” abortion?* Even post-natal “abortion” has been proposed by some extremists.** Here the mother has had plenty of time to perform a regular abortion. She chose not to. Moreover, for every day that has gone by, the “my body”*** pseudo-argument has lost strength, and the position that the fetus is a human, not a mere clump of cells, has gained strength. This position of “I should be allowed to abort any time I like and for whatever reason!” is near impossible for me to comprehend without assuming a motivation that is more fanatical and quasi-religious than reasoned. It is no longer a matter of even misconstrued women’s rights—it is a matter of pushing something to its extreme out of fanaticism. (Unless it is a matter of “Republicans are against abortion! We must extend abortion further and further to thwart and annoy them!”, a position that, sadly, is not impossible within the current U.S. Left.)

   *Again, excepting cases where medical reasons are present; however, not rape, as medical issues might occur late, while the rape necessarily takes place at approximately the time of conception.

   **I.e. that an already born child might be killed off. An interesting twist is that stories of similar behaviors in the past, as with “infant exposure”, have often been met with outrage, laments over the barbaric past, or self-lauding words of how much more civilized we are today… (And very often by exactly the type of “Progressive” who also sees abortion, at whatever terms the woman wants, as a positive.)

   ***However, it does apply to the increased risk of complications, compared to regular abortion. If the woman wants to take that extra risk for herself then that is her business.

4. The leak, it self, might be seen as a further example. Indeed, the attitude of “When the rules are in our favor, demand compliance; when they are not, break them.” is disturbingly common on the Left. Ditto that “the end justify the means” attitude and the, often, low moral integrity.

   At the same time, the leak, or rather the fact that the apparently-first-leak-ever took place in just this case, is a strong sign of a lack of reason combined with a quasi-religious drive and/or a sign of what a ridiculous “symbol issue” abortion has become. Note that the leak does not in anyway alter the legal arguments of the case; however, it was likely to (and certainly did) cause tumultuous reactions among many Leftists. These reactions, in turn, might well have caused a weak justice* to cave for fear of his life or his family’s lives, or in order to avoid outright riots** in the wake of the official judgment. At the extreme end, it cannot be ruled out that some Leftist extremists take it upon themselves to take out a few members of the SCOTUS in order to delay judgment until a more Leftist set of justices is in place (or to force judgment in a reduced court with a Leftist majority).***

   *I leave unstated whether any of the current justices are weak. The principle applies even if they are not.

   **Note that some politicians and civil servants took approaches towards e.g. BLM rioters that were quite sub- and permissive. I have also seen repeated recommendations like “leave your car unlocked so that the burglar doesn’t have to smash the window” and “cooperate with the robber to avoid any violence” concerning the increased crime levels since then.

   ***I have long been puzzled, and positively surprised, by how rarely such things are attempted. In a country with a population in excess of 300 million, there would be more than 300 persons who are one-in-a-million. Are those with a sufficient degree of both fanaticism and competence that much rarer than one-in-a-million?

Excursion on me, abortion, and RW:
As I have stated in the past, I do not have strong feelings, in either direction, concerning abortion (but I do have them about weak argumentation and thinking around abortion), and I would tentatively consider myself exactly an RW opponent not motivated by his feelings about abortion. In this, I have to make the dual reservation that the law is a complicated matter and that I am not a lawyer. However, the arguments that I have seen so far have favored the “anti-RW” side, while the “pro-RW” side has had little or nothing to offer, seeming based almost entirely in a pro-abortion stance, rather than legal arguments. The anti-RW take of Justices Thomas (has made his negative opinion known in the past) and Alito (author of the leaked draft), alone, is a very strong sign that RW was wrong.**

*No, “Women’s rights!” is not a legal argument.

**I am against arguments to authority, and I do not claim that “You must agree, because Thomas and Alito said so!”. My claim is rather that there are some persons whose competence, and integrity,*and professionalism* is sufficiently well proven that I am, personally, willing to take much on faith in their area of expertise. Thomas is among the best examples of this that I have ever encountered, while my impressions of Alito have, so far, been quite favorable. Sonia Sotomayor? Not so much.

*Too many competent persons fail at integrity and/or professionalism, and these characteristics really do make a difference—the more so in a judge/justice.

Excursion on abortion due to Dawn’s Syndrome and similar:
Whether such abortions, including or excluding “late term” abortions, should be allowed is an interesting ethical question, where I have not formed an opinion—and do not hold a grudge against either side. However, I note that I have repeatedly seen various Leftist groups push the angle that interventions against e.g. Dawn’s Syndrome justify abortions—which would have met with the wholehearted approval of the Nazis. (And it is almost funny how what amounts to Eugenics is suddenly acceptable when it supports the Cause.)

Excursion on raising use or abuse to virtue:
Some pro-abortion attitudes go counter to one of my own principles of a (hypothetical) Libertarian society (and life/society in general): that we have the right to do something does not imply that we should do it. We all have the right to eat potato chips (and there is nothing wrong in doing so, if done with sufficient moderation). Does this mean that we should eat several bags a week? A bag a day? Several bags a day? No.

Equally, it commits what I tend to think of as the “salt in the soup” fallacy, to reason that “if a little salt is good for the soup, then more salt is even better”. This might work for a little while, but soon the soup begins to taste worse—and it ends up inedible, if too much salt is used. (To which health concerns might be added.)

However, some seem to have an attitude that abortion is an outright virtue or that “the more, the better”. Other errors of a similar type are not unheard of among Feminists, in particular, and the Left, in general. Consider e.g. the common Feminist attitude that women would have an obligation to work in the office instead of the home, where a much more sensible attitude, common among non- and anti-Feminists, is that a woman (or, m.m., man), even if a mother, should have the right to work in the office, should she so choose—and, equally, the right to remain at home with the children, should that be her preference. (Of course, assuming sufficiently favorable circumstances, e.g. with regard to availability of kindergartens resp. money.)