packmule

In my reply to the topic "The Disease of Patriarchal Capitalism", I wrote: "During most of modern human existence going back more than 100,000 years, patriarchal polygamous tribalism was the norm, and the best and most coveted position for a woman in such a society, was being a wife of the patriarch. This was the position most likely to ensure not only passing on her genes, but improving her genes by mating with the dominant male of the tribe, who on average would have earned his position through demonstrated intelligence (negotiating ability and decision-making), physical skills (hunting, fighting, and resource gathering ability), and other characteristics of value to the happiness and preservation of the tribe. Therefore, women are hard-wired to deify successful males, and thus provide the motive force for religions and all authoritarian structures. The average man just follows to gain attractiveness in women's eyes, and would never "worship" another man of natural volition." Therefore, the increased influence of women in modern life brings with it an increase in authoritarian structures.

Thanks for chronicling your experience of state subsidized misandry. I, likewise, have suffered traumatic injustice at the hands of malicious young girls emboldened by feminist privilege. My high school teaching contract was terminated last year after the principal's 16 year old daughter stood up and said in front of the entire class, "You know we can get you fired. We've gotten a teacher fired before, and we can get you fired. We're sneaky, we'll break into your car and rip out your air bags!" The course was College Algebra, coordinated through a local community college, and the issue was calculator usage. The incident occurred about 5 weeks into the semester, before we had even received our textbooks from the community college, and before the official course had begun. I spent the time getting them up to speed, covering everything from basic math to material they had seen in Algebra II. Prior to the incident, some of the female students took great umbrage at not being allowed to use a calculator, and one student threatened, "My mom will be up here to see you, and she is one person you don't want to deal with!" A few days after the outburst, this parent called the principal and demanded a conference with him. He said she had to confer with me first, which she did, but then still demanded a conference with the principal even though my conversation with her went well. She also called the community college and talked to the head of the department about me. The irony is that all of the students who had complained or threatened had A's at the time. For this reason, and the fact that I am generally liked by students and sincerely try to act in their best interests, I brushed off the threats as hyperbole and dark humor. In fact, the principal's daughter had often "high-fived" and "knuckle bumped" me and was generally friendly, though sometimes sullen. Also, I made sure the students knew that we would start using calculators in a few weeks when we would actually need them. I was shocked when I was called into the principal's office in April and told my contract was not being renewed. I was the Physics teacher, as well as a Math teacher, and held English certification also. I hold a Master's Degree in Mathematics, not Education, and had taught a dozen semesters of college math courses, as well as 5 years in public school and 2 years in private. Prior to accepting this position at the beginning of the school year, I told the principal that this couldn't be a one year deal because I was leaving a job that I liked. He said, "There's no reason to worry. We've always had Physics here and will continue to do so." I had no chance to appeal the termination because they told me the afternoon before our 10-day Spring Break and there is a 10-day calendar limit on appeals. This wasn't the end of my humiliation. In May I was accused of lowering the principal's daughter's grade. Her grade and some of the others had fallen to a B, and because of a disastrous 37 on her final, she ended up with a C. The woman conducting the investigation, was an assistant principal with a PhD in Education. I gave her a copy of the daughter's Exam and pointed out to her that she had left about half of it blank and handed it in early, and that if she had made a 60 or better, she would have maintained her B. Nevertheless, the assistant principal called me in a second time and tried to badger me into changing the grade. Some facts: 1) The principal and his daughter did an "I've Got Your Back" skit in front of the student body after a popular cheerleader committed suicide. During the skit they forcefully chanted the phrase back and forth, pointing strongly at each other. Black "I've Got Your Back" T-shirts were sold to students and given to faculty. 2) My students as a whole did very well grade-wise, even though I challenge them and hold them accountable for the coursework. The following percents made A's: Physics 80%, Honors Geometry 60%, College Algebra 45%, and Regular Geometry 25%. I've never given such high marks. 3) The principal was fired this year for sending sexually explicit texts to female teachers, and when they searched his office, they found illegal drugs. There is much more to this story and my butchered teaching career, but I didn't intend to write even this much. The baggage I carry is painful.

As a boy, I remember taking a shower with my father and two brothers and noticing a drastic difference in appearance between my father's penis (uncircumcised) and mine and my brothers (circumcised). I didn't like the appearance of my dad's, but didn't know then that he was uncircumcised. I saw it as just another strange characteristic of the aloof and authoritarian man we called "Dad." Growing up, I was told that male circumcision was done for cosmetic/hygiene reasons, and considered it normal. As an adult, I have gradually learned to view it otherwise, and would choose not to have had it done if that were possible. As a thinking adult, the question leaps to mind "Why aren't girls also routinely circumcised in hospitals as newborns?" Most girls have overdeveloped labia minora and a lot of unsightly extra skin therefrom. I recently visited a website which I found by googling "normal vulva." The site consisted of 25 pictures of vulva presented as normal, but which, except for 3, were repellent to me. I read several of the posts from girls worried about their genital appearance, and the replies that routinely reassured them that "Men don't care." Maybe some men don't care. I have read that schoolgirls in Zimbabwe are instructed to sit facing each other on the classroom floor and pull on each others labia minora to increase their size, because "men like having something to play with before intercourse." I used to think that women in pornography magazines were not a representative sample because excessive intercourse had pulled things out of place. I now know this is false because I have been married 28 years, and the appearance of my wife's genitals has not changed at all, even having birthed 2 children. So over-developed labia minora is something girls are born with. I asked my wife about this and she said that the condition is "God's way of punishing girls with great tits and ass, and the men who lust for them." During much of human history and across many cultures, women were regarded as "dirty" or "sinful" and potentially dangerous. Is there a connection with genital appearance? For instance, was genital abnormality considered the devil's mark, the result of diabolical liaisons? She also said that our daughter, like her, does not have over-developed labia minora, indicating the trait is hereditary. Considering, that most girls do, what are the biological evolutionary implications? If a girl had a patch of unsightly excess skin on any other body part, this would deter most paramours and she would be less likely to reproduce. How is the historical abuse of women across many cultures involved? (Mass rape during wartime, for example.) But, finally to the question posed in the title: Why is female circumcision invariably labeled "mutilation" and never considered cosmetic? Many girls would benefit in self-esteem from the procedure if intelligently done in a sanitary hospital as a newborn. How do we today know that the practice which has been performed across many cultures for thousands of years was not cosmetic? If it was and was successful, this could explain why the condition of over-developed labia minora was not selected against by males. After all, "marrying off a daughter" was historically an important undertaking for parents and they would have done anything necessary to ensure the appearance of virginity, which was generally checked.

Teabagger, you are using language to debate, but are not recognizing and adhering to traditional definitions. Webster defines pollution as "the introduction of harmful substances or products into the environment." Farts could be pollution if the concentration of methane in the room became high enough to cause harm. Farts would be aggression if willfully emitted in the presence of someone who hated the smell. Aggression is an offensive action. Protecting one's property and quality of life is defensive and fits under Universally Preferrable Behavior, even though it may involve the use of a violence. One should never choose pollution as a means of self-defense, because pollution persists in the environment and could therefore cause harm to the innocent. To equate pollution with progress is ridiculous. All biological organisms operate at a certain level of efficiency. Mammals convert about 25% of the energy in their food to mechanical work. The percentages may be higher or lower for other organisms, but all living organisms produce waste. The beautiful thing about biology, is that what is waste from one, is food for another. In this way, ecosystems have existed for millions of years, without degradation. Earth today is being degraded and depleted minute-by-minute, day-by-day, and year-by-year to satisfy the consumption lust of humans. The pollutants that are waste products of fossil fuel combustion, manufacturing, and mining contain chemicals which our environment is not equipped to break down, and which harm biological organisms. Reducing these harmful inorganic waste products to zero environmental impact should be a primary goal in the vital need to create a sustainable, and possibly even, improving planet.

I would say that morality and intelligence are statistically correlated, not connected causally. Consider two women, one intelligent and one not, with infants going to the grocery store on a hot summer's day. The intelligent woman is constantly vigilant in the care of her baby, and takes every precaution to avoid dangers seen and unseen. The unintelligent woman has difficulty processing sensory information into usable plans of action, and therefore "flies by the seat of her pants." Upon arrival at the grocery store, the intelligent woman unstraps her baby from its car seat and brings it inside, alarmed by the potential heat danger. The unintelligent woman, is not alarmed by the heat, and thinking she will only be a few minutes, leaves her baby in the car, saving herself the trouble of unstrapping the baby and dealing with it in the store. When she returns to her car 30 minutes later, having taken longer than she expected, she is horrified to find her baby dead. If one were to compare the women morally by their actions, the intelligent woman would be called moral, and the unintelligent woman immoral (grossly negligent). But the unintelligent woman loved her baby and is horrified that it has died needlessly. It was her lack of intelligence that killed the baby. Likewise, the American people as a group were lacking in the basic intelligence needed to see the collapse of the WTC as an unnatural, man-made event (controlled demolition), and to blast the government narrative into oblivion. Had a critical mass of Americans arrived at the truth by critical thinking, the War on Terror that ensued by design would have been thwarted along with the monstrous moral and material costs to America and its Iraqi and Afghani victims.

I recently talked with a civil engineer while playing tennis and he said that the core problem in American and world society is low intelligence, to which he traces every social pathology including wars and other forms of mass violence. His central argument is that morality and intelligence are directly correlated, and that people of low intelligence (80% of the population by his measure) are incapable of the reasoning needed to make sound judgments and decisions, even when the facts and relevant information needed are at their fingertips. I countered that most people are conditioned to revere authority figures (priests, politicians, scientists, teachers, parents, etc.) and to accept their judgments and decisions without critical scrutiny. He said that such acceptance is immoral, and a mark of low intelligence, since the intelligent person will pursue the truth even in the face of adversity. He uses 9/11 as an example. Volumes have been written to discredit the government's 9/11 narrative (see Stefan's podcast on 9/11 - 2006?), and some of it is definitive, but he says proving that the World Trade Center Towers 1 and 2 came down by controlled demolition is child's play, and that any moral (intelligent) American knows the truth about the collapse and where the damning finger of justice should be pointed, for that day of horror and the wars, death and destruction that have followed. Few do. Here is what he sent me: 9/11 For Dummies. 1) Towers 1 & 2 of the WTC were each over 1,300 feet tall ( 1/4 mile) and consisted of 236 exterior vertical steel columns (14" square in cross-section) and 47 interior vertical steel columns (some 52" x 22", and some 36" x 16" in cross-section), all more than 1,300 feet tall and tied together with horizontal steel beam grids at each of the 110 floors. 2) After the towers' collapse, there were no 1,300 foot long columns, which would have spanned 2 city blocks (1/4 mile). Instead, photos show myriad gnarled pieces of steel columns in and around the 208' x 208' base of the towers, few of which are more than 30 feet long. None of the column pieces are longer than the diagonal of the square base, which is 295 feet. 3) Therefore, 283 steel columns 1,300' tall were cut into small pieces (most less than 30') in the 15 second collapse of each tower. 4) The only natural forces acting on the towers were a) gravity and b) fire at the upper 1/3 of the south tower and the upper 1/4 of the north tower. Gravity can't cut steel and fire can only if its temperature is greater than 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a concentrated form such as a welding torch. Office fires satisfy neither the temperature requirement, nor the concentration requirement for cutting steel. Also, the fact that thousands of people were alive in most parts of the towers prior to collapse, indicates no fire threat to the steel columns was present in most of their vertical length. Thus, we can eliminate natural forces and conclude that the multiple cuttings of each of the 283 vertical steel columns of Towers 1 & 2 of the World Trade Center were made by unnatural or man-made methods and technology. 5) So, whether it was Thermite or Thermate that cut the steel columns, or whether you call it controlled demolition, implosion, or some other name, it was man-made technology and methods that brought down Towers 1 & 2 (&7) in typical controlled demolition rapidity and result.

Here is another proof that God exists: Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain 7 letters. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost children while living in the White House. Both Presidents were shot on a Friday. Both Presidents were shot in the head. Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy. Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. Both were assassinated by Southerners. Both were succeeded by Southerners. Both successors were named Johnson. Andrew Johnson who succeeded Lincoln was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson who succeeded Kennedy was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839. Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939. Both assassins were known by their 3 names. Both names are composed of 15 letters. Lincoln was shot at a theatre in Washington D.C., and Kennedy has a theatre in Washington D.C named after him. (The Kennedy Center) Kennedy was shot in a car called a "Lincoln." Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse. Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater. Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before their trials. And here's the kicker - A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe. Therefore God exists!

Pollution, by definition, is the introduction of a harmful chemical substance into the biosphere. If property rights exist, then Not Polluting is Universally Preferable Behavior, because if polluting is acceptable, one has no right to defend one's property (which includes one's body) against the harm caused by a pollution event, and therefore the right to one's property and its maintenance (property rights) is violated. During the Vietnam War, America sprayed Agent Orange defoliant on 10% of Vietnam, a primarily agricultural nation, destroying over 5 million acres of upland and mangrove forests, as well as 500,000 acres of crops. Nearly 5 million civilians lived on the lands sprayed, resulting in 150,000 birth defects, a million cancers, and in total 3 million who suffer from the adverse health effects of long term exposure to the dioxin component of Agent Orange which remains in the environment for hundreds of years. To say that the American Agent Orange spraying of Vietnam was not aggression is ridiculous. If someone sprayed your lawn and shrubbery with Agent Orange, you would have to let this action stand if you believe that "Pollution is not aggression"! Aggression is any willful action which causes or seeks to cause harm (a reduction in the quality of life) to a conscious biological organism. Yes, animals included. If you know that your neighbor hates loud music and you aim a boom box at him while he is outdoors on his porch reading, you are aggressing against him, by lowering the quality of his life. Even non-willful acts which cause harm, should require compensation if the harm could easily have been foreseen. Such negligent acts have been adjudicated by courts for hundreds of years. The quality of conscious life on Earth is intimately connected with the quality of the biosphere. Humans have the capacity for maintenance and improvement of the biosphere while enjoying the meaningful improvements that science and technology have brought. Maintaining and striving to improve the biosphere is Universally Preferable Behavior. The degradation and destruction of the wondrous living planet we inhabit day by day and year by year is suicide. Keep in mind that most people worldwide think that Armageddon (choose your flavor) will occur within 50 years, and realize that such attitudes have existed for tens of thousands of years. Won't human life exist in a thousand years? Ten thousand years? A hundred thousand years? It should. Our actions today determine the quality of life they will enjoy.

During most of modern human existence going back more than 100,000 years, patriarchal polygamous tribalism was the norm, and the best and most coveted position for a woman in such a society, was being a wife of the patriarch. This was the position most likely to ensure not only passing on her genes, but improving her genes by mating with the dominant male of the tribe, who on average would have earned his position through demonstrated intelligence (negotiating ability and decision-making), physical skills (hunting, fighting, and resource gathering ability), and other characteristics of value to the happiness and preservation of the tribe. Therefore, women are hard-wired to deify successful males, and thus provide the motive force for religions and all authoritarian structures. The average man just follows to gain attractiveness in women's eyes, and would never "worship" another man of natural volition. The insect world is full of cooperative societies (ant and bee colonies, for example) and many evolutionary biologists have written about the survival efficacy of these role-based communities in which individuals behave sacrificially for the good of the colony. And certainly, throughout history, members of successful human tribes have sacrificed for the well-being and preservation of the tribe. The problem with these examples, is that the colony or tribe is the "in-group" and all else is the "out-group" to which no rules apply. The value of any system of society today should be measured by the quality of life it produces in the future. If people in a society are supplied according to need, and have equal reproductive rights, then a person with poor eye sight, for instance, would have a genetic footprint equal to a person with good eye sight, and that society in the future would be diminished in the attribute of eyesight quality. While the free market is often painful in particular instances, it is just, and provides a positive gradient to the future.