aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!

[kaffy_r]

Urge. To. Kill.
Reason #1,436,085 I am glad I do not have a gun or frequent flier miles. It's also reason #9,572,009 I am ... diffident ... about religiously-based gender roles. The laff riot really gets rolling around paras 7 and 8.

Comments

[kaffy_r]

Sing it, sister!

One of the things that truly enrages me about this guy is this: the very fact that he tries to rationalize the law to questioners reveals his own understanding that it's inherently wrong. Someone who completely believed in it - presumably because it came from god - would simply say "I don't have to explain it to you; it's god's law." This guy hems and haws about it. Yeah, he believes men and women aren't equal, but somewhere down deep inside him, he knows that it's crap, that his faith doesn't back him up.

And that's how it is with a great many "faith-backed" laws with unfairness or bigotry at their core. The people who support this kind of unjust law, and claim holy backing of the laws, know somewhere in their hearts that a) god supports no such thing and b)that it is, in fact, wrong. (For instance, substitute pro-slavery Christian ministers of the 1800s, pre-Civil War, for Afghani imams, and you have the same thing.)

[(Anonymous)]

I see it a bit differently (what a surprise, eh?). I see it as a failure of governments that turn out to function in the all-too-typical "Democracy == 'Let's kill Frank and split up his stuff'" way. Democracy (either representative or direct) is not enough. There are a lot of other more crucial characteristics that outline places I'd want to live. --MMB

[kaffy_r]

Ok, failing to parse the message. Are we referencing Afghanistan here? Because honey, I have news for you; it's not a democracy. Are we referencing this country? Can we define the "all-too-typical 'Democracy'"? The 'let's kill Frank and split up his stuff'? Because right now, I'm having a bit of a hard time figuring out what it has to do with the price of potatoes.

Tell you what; let's you and I have a long discussion about it over a cup of coffee (and, unfortunately, probably over the phone lines. Distance sucks, neh?) We have pretty much diametrically opposed views about the nature of democracy, and perhaps about a lot of other things, but I think perhaps we can agree that a theocracy which treats women as this law does, is not a good thing.

[(Anonymous)]

You think "democracy" means what you want it to mean. "Democracy" has a very specific meaning: some fraction of the population votes, and the majority decision is imposed by force (with the acquiescence of the ones whos vote did not carry).

That's /it/. Everything else is idealism plopped on top that really has other labels. There are a lot of great qualities of our way of life here in the West. But "democracy" (where it applies) is only a very small piece of the quilt.

If you want to live your life with some fuzzy bunny definition that lumps all the good stuff under that label, go for it, but you're deliberately drinking Kool-Aid to so do. My quarrel is not with you, nor am I arguing in favor of the law in Afghanistan. I am greatly puzzled by the thinking that would be entailed by anyone concluding otherwise.

--MMB

[kaffy_r]

Ah, my friend, you underestimate the strength of language evolution. And fuzzy bunnies.

[(Anonymous)]

Balls. Kindly refer to Lincoln on "if you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?" Cordially, you are full of shit, my dear. Good evening.

[dr-whuh.livejournal.com]

Cordially, you are being a troll, my dear. Good grief.

[(Anonymous)]

And good night. Kathy, feel free to delete any comments that are at all not fuzzy bunny enough. --MMB

[dr-whuh.livejournal.com]

Kathy, feel free to delete any comments posted by those so paranoid as to feel they must always post anonymously.
--Robert Jackson Berlien

[(Anonymous)]

Bob, I don't bother to log into LJ because Kathy and I would probably get into even more go-'rounds than we do if I did.

--Michael M. Butler, surprised at how Bob is mindreading

[dr-whuh.livejournal.com]

You're very diplomatic, Ms Kaffyr. Were someone to act like this on my LJ, I'd suggest that he or she remove his or her lure from the water and speed the motor up a little, or find a new lake.

Poll: Is there anyone here who didn't pass civics class? Who doesn't understand that when over half of the population is disenfranchised due to its type of personal plumbing, a governmental unit cannot be considered a democracy?

[(Anonymous)]

Good evening to you, too, Dr.

Did the women of Athens vote? Did the women of our own country vote before a constitutional amendment passed? General suffrage is a separate matter from "democracy"--and as it happens, one of the things I was talking about APPROVINGLY when I mentioned how important other things than "democracy" *are*.

Jeeziss, I'm not ADVOCATING what happened. I give up, though. Clearly I'm not fit company here. Pity, that.

[dr-whuh.livejournal.com]

Answer to question 1: No. Question 2: No.

The point is that ya didn't have to come off so damned fannishly snotty. You were abrupt as hell, and when you "suggested" to mizzlaurajean that she "reexamine her presuppositions," you were using the old "Why isn't everyone as learned and brilliant as I am? Go get an education, you lout!" ploy. In other words, it ain't whatcha said that riled folk, it was the way ya said it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, thanks for the feedback. Much is lost in this medium. The presuppositions I was asking Mizz to reexamine were about /me/, not about anything else. To some extent I was mindreading as well, of course.

It is, as she later wrote, /precisely a civil right issue, not a democracy issue/.

I apologize for my irritability and my unsociable utterance to Kathy _in print_, where it sat like a turd on your carpet.

The rest is silence.

--MMB

[kaffy_r]

Sweetie, you can make me so mad, and put so many damned grey hairs on my head (thank god for L'Oreal), but I still love you. I think perhaps the estimable BB has the right of it. Let us all now agree that bunnies are fuzzy, stupid laws are stupid fucking laws, and that civil discourse is still an art to be cherished, and one only slightly below friendship.