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"Why can't we hate men?"

luchog said:
WTF do quotas have to do with anything I posted? I think you have me mistaken for a different poster.
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My apologies, for whatever reason I'd thought you were supporting that part of the one side debate. I'm not sure exactly why.
 
luchog said:
Except that that is how American government works, and always has. We're not a democracy, we're a representative republic, and we expect that our representatives will do what is right for all citizens, regardless of what the majority of citizens want or believe, to prevent "The Tyranny of the Majority".

Nearly every major advance in human rights in this country had to be imposed by the government, and it was actively fought against (and much of it still is) by a huge percentage of the population. That's then entire reason for the Secession of the Confederate States, after all. If it had been left to a majority vote, slavery would have remained the law of the land for many, many decades longer than it did, and Jim Crow laws never would have been repealed in the overwhelming number states that enacted them. Hell, there a whole lot of people in bit parts of this country who are trying to return us to those days.

In this particular case, quotas for politician's doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, but government overriding the will of the majority most certainly does.




Except, again, America is not actually a democracy, never has been, and there is a very good reason for that.
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The current system is far from perfect, but I'm naturally leery of radical shakeups because they can have so many unforeseen consequences, as well as initiating intense backlash from the public (which is basically a phobia of mine now, I guess).

I'm not an expert on this stuff, so what do I know, really. But radical revisions at that level would cause problems.
 
d4m10n said:
How else does one get a sense of how people think?
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When they're as patently absurd as that... just making it up. (AKA "lying".)

Which is typical of advocacy to use political institutions to harm demographic groups based on the idea that it's okay to "hate" those groups.
 
d4m10n said:
Because it's bleeding obvious.

How else does one get a sense of how people think?
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There are various ways of finding out how people think, some more objective than others. There are also difficulties involved in your method such as the biases of the person gathering the data (including the confirmation bias of counting the hits and disregarding the misses), and ensuring a representative sample (if you are just talking to acquaintances of yours maybe you just happen to hang around with the wrong crowd, for example).
 
angrysoba said:
There are also difficulties involved in your method such as the biases of the person gathering the data...
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Gathering a subjective sense of how people tend to think in one's own native culture probably should not be compared with gathering data in an experimental sense.
 
d4m10n said:
Gathering a subjective sense of how people tend to think in one's own native culture probably should not be compared with gathering data in an experimental sense.
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The comparison is important, because it is how we see the differences between the two, and which is better for a particular purpose.

Are you just blogging about your feelings? In that case, sure. Your subjective sense of whatever is probably fine.

But what if you're trying to tell us you see a real problem and you'd like us to support your plan for solving it? Suddenly your subjective sense about how people think is a lot less meaningful.

Unless you're really, really good at it. Which you're not. Look how long it took for your subjective sense to figure out that people asking you a simple question didn't see the answer you thought was "obvious".

So. What's this subjective sense of yours doing in this conversation? You dragged it in here, what do you want us to do with it? Should we take it seriously? To what end?
 
luchog said:
Nearly every major advance in human rights in this country had to be imposed by the government, and it was actively fought against (and much of it still is) by a huge percentage of the population. That's then entire reason for the Secession of the Confederate States, after all.
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It's not that simple. The sort of advances you're talking about were indeed government impositions. But they were largely impositions from one part of the government on another part. Slavery and Jim Crow were government-enforced discrimination to begin with.

And contrary to your assertion, the most fundamental changes have required public opinion to change first. That change doesn't have to be total or unanimous, but politics is downstream from culture.

If it had been left to a majority vote, slavery would have remained the law of the land for many, many decades longer than it did
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No. Slavery remained because the issue was NOT one of majority vote. Northern states could not impose their will on Southern states through a direct vote.

and Jim Crow laws never would have been repealed in the overwhelming number states that enacted them.
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They would have much earlier if the North got to vote on which laws the South had to follow. Which is essentially what happened in the end.

Except, again, America is not actually a democracy, never has been, and there is a very good reason for that.
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Sure. But the consequences of that are more complex than you suggest.
 
Fudbucker said:
The problem isn't with voters, but rather barriers to entry for female politicians. One such barrier was/is rampant sexual harassment in Congress. So much so, that a taxpayer-funded harassment payout account was on the books for years (has that situation changed yet?).
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I agree. Although it's funny to see the party of Ted Kennedy try to make hay out of this (to be clear, that's not directed at you).

And yes, sometimes we have to circumvent democracy for peoples' own good. It didn't matter how many people in Alabama supported separate-but-equal policies. That had to stop.
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True, but you should be very careful about how and when you do that. Most justifiable cases, including the one you mention, are about protecting individual rights, especially against the state. Trying to establish group right separate from individual rights (as in the case of quotas) is a very dangerous road.
 
Ziggurat said:
Trying to establish group right separate from individual rights (as in the case of quotas) is a very dangerous road.
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What exactly is the danger in having as many women in leadership as men?

Do you have any historical examples of where this "dangerous road" ended up?
 
d4m10n said:
What exactly is the danger in having as many women in leadership as men?
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If they get there by merit, nothing.

Do you have any historical examples of where this "dangerous road" ended up?
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Every totalitarian ideology requires that you subsume your individual identity into a group identity. Quotas give you a reason to do that, and provide a legal precedent for group identity-based discrimination as well.

I'm not saying quotas automatically produce fascism. But they reduce the barriers to it.
 
d4m10n said:
Talking to men, of course.
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You are aware that's utterly lousy sampling, aren't you.

You're using only the men you've met to make a derisory statement about 99% of all the men in the world really isn't good thinking.

I also find it offensive. For all the little that's worth.
 
d4m10n said:
Agree or disagree with it, or suggest some way to find actual data to settle the issue.
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Of all the possible things that might be true, most aren't. You've given us no good reason to think that the number you offered is correct, so I'm going to say we shouldn't base any idea or actions on it.
 
d4m10n said:
Men are most likely capable of empathizing with what it would be like to face an unwanted pregnancy, but I doubt that even 1% of them ever bother to put in the necessary mental effort.
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3point14 said:
You're using only the men you've met to make a derisory statement about 99% of all the men in the world really isn't good thinking.
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You think the number should be lower?
 
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Ziggurat said:
I'm not saying quotas automatically produce fascism. But they reduce the barriers to it.
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You haven't provided any examples of quotas leading to fascism, much less quotas specifically designed to make representative bodies more demographically representative somehow leading to fascism.
 
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