I mostly agree with what you said. Especially the things about Tatcher. She was a great woman, indeed, for the UK. Her capacity was her passion for the cause. That’s what made her competent for the job. Although that in the areas of Durham I noticed that not everybody was happy with Tatcher (closing of the mines, etc), yet it was necessary for the UK to have a good energy policy (nuclear energy). I don’t know all the details, of course, I’m not involved enough.

In a similar way I think Merkel might or is already doing a good job as a female politician. Those two mean(t) far more for womans in politics, than whatever Hillary has done. Hillary didn’t play the competence card. She played the “I’m Clinton’s woman and I have a vagina”-card. Who cares about either your Clinton or your vagina? Plenty of people, so it seems. But it’s the wrong reason for selecting/electing a candidate as your personal favourite, in my opinion.

I don’t know why I come up with this, I think it’s relevant.

But I don’t want to hide my opinion behind complex constructions that will avoid any form of being condescending. Because it’s not a fair pole position to have to start that way, in any discussion (for reasons I stated before, among them being that just calling somebody’s word condescending is hollow).

That’s true, but it misses half the point. There’s a difference between trying to avoid pissing off readers, and not caring whether you piss off readers.

In both cases some people still get pissed off. But the latter will include a lot of people you didn’t mean to irritate, and they won’t be inclined to believe you when you say you weren’t being deliberately irritating.

Whereas if you take more care with your words and tone, the people who misinterpret you will be fewer, and more likely to get over it when you explain yourself further.

Of course, one down side to trying to sound fair and reasonable is it doesn’t draw nearly as many comments. If you’re the kind of guy who’s at home in a nasty argument, that can be a better path for you. Like attracts like.

People who use this technique basically seem to believe that it *is* [condescending], because it *is*. That’s not an argument, that’s like how religion says that God exists, because … because what? Because there are turtles holding planet earth in its position? What about the one at the very bottom of the stack? Is it standing on yet another turtle?

My argument is that no men can state any opinion without being condescending for somebody else.

Therefore, so what?

ps. To say that people like me are beyond convincing, is yet another escape route. To question why anyone would bother contradicts with the fact that you seemed to have bothered replying.

“why not try to get to the point instead? […] It’s necessary if you want to convince people like me.”

People like you (those who don’t attempt to understand, but make vitriolic statements about people who disagree with you) are beyond convincing. I don’t know why anyone would bother.

Maybe this will scare them off….

I liked the movie better.

Hee!

** Welcome to “The Handmaid’s Tale”, America **

McCain is a dupe. Now he’s just along for a ride into the abyss of fundamentalist political ideology, dominionism.

Palin comes “wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross.” She is exactly the gender traitor dominionists need to create the xian Iran of their dreams, under xian imams, xian thugs, and their corporate overlords.

Have you ever read or ever viewed The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood? A one sentence synopsis: “In a dystopicly polluted right-wing religious tyranny, a young woman is put in sexual slavery on account of her now rare fertility.” IMDb.com/title/tt0099731

Atwood depicts a society in which women have been stripped of all rights in a fragment of a failed America, known as Gilead, a country controlled by christian fundamentalist terrorists.

Obama PACs should buy The Handmaid’s Tale, novel and DVD, by the box load and hand copies to every media person they know. Get TV outlets to broadcast it. If necessary buy time to show The Handmaid’s Tale in critical markets.

Palin emerges as a puritanical atavism directly from Atwood’s dystopia. She belongs to a possible future we must avert.

For the correlation to a shift in female voters I today agree with Stormy’s comments.

I hope that helps people with placing my style and words within their own sphere of condescending-ness (however you write that in English).

“I disagree with Philip, so I’ll think of him as condescending”. It’s easy to make your brain think that somebody is condescending. But as Ian in the past has accused (if there’s a lighter form of accusing in English, use that one for your interpretation of “accusing”) me of misinterpreting people, politics, opinions, media and whatever, accused me of “not listening”, so is easily thinking that I’m being condescending the same as “your brain” “not listening” to what I’m actually trying to say.

So I agree with Ian that perhaps I’m not very good at controlling my tone very well.

So what. I’m not trying to have a career as a diplomat.

AS an example: if J5 “in his mind, in HIS brains” redefines something I *explicitly* and *carefully* described as “wanting absolute equality between genders” as “double speak” instead … then I DO wonder how much more of his interpretation of what I did write got morphed into things that he will indeed consider as being “condescending”. If he at the same scale rewrites my words in his mind as he rewrote the term “real feminism”, then it’s just going to be plain impossible for me not to be “condescending”.

Adding to my reasoning that his word “condescending” is hollow and “meaningless”. Therefore “not convincing me”.

Let me, in high resolution and high detail, reiterate what *exactly* I wrote:

“I’m a real male feminist: I want absolute equality between genders.”

Everybody should use CTRL+F and search the comments for “real feminist”. Please also compare it with Google cache or whatever you want. Because that *is* exactly what I wrote.

There’s no way to get a double meaning out of it IF I explicitly gave the *exact* meaning of how I define the term “real feminist” the very first time I used it.

“I want absolute equality between genders.”

*IS* what I call “real feminism”.

Whatever regular feminism means, whatever “real feminism” means for other people, for me, within *this* context, real feminism got defined as “wanting absolute equality between genders”.

It’s exactly the same as:

#define REAL_FEMINISM “wanting absolute equality between genders”

How can a define be double-speak? Unless you #undef and redefine it, which I didn’t. You did, by calling it “double speak”. But my compiler wont compile your redefinition, J5. The redefinition also doesn’t make sense. It’s you who wrote the patch, yet it’s you who’s accusing me of writing it, yet I rejected it.

Trying to attack my definition for it by calling “the term” that I used, a “double speak” IF I defined it *precisely* and *carefully*, is just trying to rewrite what I wrote, J5. it’s also, related to your other accusation, opportunism of appearing as the last comment at full scale.

It’s not something the kind of people that I care about will fall for.

That’s possible. But it’s also possible that Philip just does not control his tone well - maybe he doesn’t care to or maybe he fails to. I know I’ve been in both groups. Either being too (say) irritated to care, or being unable to match the tone readers detect to the tone I hear in my head.

I prefer to think that about most people who irritate me. Even if I’m wrong, it still helps when I go to respond.

ps. I think John (J5) Palmieri is overreacting my political opinion. The argument that I’m “condescending” has been used far too often and I no longer really care about people calling my style “condescending”. You use it in the exact same way you accuse me of, J5: opportunistic. You’ll throw the word “condescending” around every time it suits you. That is, every time you slightly disagree with me, the European, the European, me, is a condescending cunt.

So what, of course. The word condescending is hollow anyway. And that way, of course, you can counter argument everything. But then again, so what, the word is hollow.

Instead of trying to wash everything away with a word like “condescending”, why not try to get to the point instead? Why not make a meme that does matter?

It’s necessary if you want to convince people like me. Just calling me “condescending” will in turn make you look condescending for me. As if you can be the only one who can have an opinion without being “condescending”. See how hollow it is? Recursive too, if you will.

The freedom of expression is obviously going to include the freedom to be condescending. Without the option to be condescending, how could anybody ever express his opinion and feelings? There’s simply no way. Everything anybody and any organization that ever says anything is going to be, one way or another, condescending for somebody else. Therefore .. is the word condescending hollow. Not a valid argument. At least not if you want to convince people of an important meme.

Unless, of course, you want the right to speak and express to be a right that only you have. That would give you, and only you, the right to detect condescending people.

And it would make your power hollow. Because your brain’s ideas wont be the ones who “in the minds of the other people”, is meaningful for mankind’s culture. Just your power to kill people when they are condescending will scare them. It wouldn’t make them “believe”. And making people believe is required to successfully replicate a meme. Although scare-tactics seem to work quite good too … for a limited amount of time.

Anyway, the word “condescending” is hollow. Therefore “meaningless” for me. You didn’t convince me, J5. Sorry.

There will be women that will vote for her because she is a woman, but I don’t really expect that to be a major factor. Her popularity at the moment seems completely based on her speech. A lot of people will soon realise that was a load of empty rethoric. She is mainly a vehicle to bind the ultra right wing voters to McCain.

It’s my personal opinion that the US would be better of with Obama as president but at the very least McCain is a major improvement over Bush. So up until now I was happy that a country so important to the world economy was getting an able leader again. Now I’m just worried what will happen if McCain/Palin win and something incapacitates McCain. I’m not sure I consider Palin a better candidate for the presidency than Bush.

Ignoring the fact that you agree with Obama and not Palin, Palin has far more executive experience than Obama (none).

To think that people (and especially the large proportion of image obsessed women) aren’t that shallow is a right laugh!

“Oh no, people won’t swing their vote just because she’s got a vagina!” yeah, right…

The problem here is that in the US, media attention swings the votes, people vote for who they’re told to vote for, after all the majority of America is populated by sheep, how else can you explain Bush getting elected, TWICE!

The reality is that sex doesn’t matter, colour doesn’t matter, religion doesn’t matter, pro-life/pro-death (that amuses me hehehe) doesn’t matter or at least non of these points should matter, in a society where they do, there are _MUCH_ bigger problems… Real issues need to be voted for, not icons in the media. You don’t pick your doctor because they’re good looking, you pick them based on their education and experience…

What I’m uncertain about is whether or not the _TWO_ American political parties actually publish a manifesto of actions to be taken, so that they’re accountable when they fail. This is what we do in Britain, still doesn’t work 100% but at least it provides a good indicator of what a party can do… Even Obama screaming “Change’ doesn’t endear me to him, its just a buzz word used to get the brain dead to get out and vote for him…

But hey, why not vote for Palin…

“VOTE VAGINA, for another glorious decade of total control! no need to think for yourself when there’s a vagina in charge men!” . . . After other recent confusing commentary from me, I should point out, YES I AM BEING SARCASTIC.

Oh and pvanhoof: feminism is just sexism, equality is something in between them both, I recently had a feminist tell me that in the early days of humanity women were as much avid hunters as men… Which seems contrary to the anthropology… That’s only one example of feminists not observing truth in the face of their insane belief structure…

I’m a meritocratist (if that’s the right word) anyone is suitable, IF they ARE suitable! Thatcher did great things for Britain, as much as she did bad things. She brought the country out of a rut into a powerful nation again, but she made errors, as to err is to human. Blair screwed us all up with his American style campaigning, astro-turfing and all that jazz… If we had any sense we would have picked someone who was qualified, rather than the best liar. My suggestion is, do exactly that, pick someone based on their politics and look at the opposition as a key to where they may be weak, discern the person best for you rather than picking the best looking or most hard line (or most fascist which seems to have been the way of late), politics is about improvement of society not control of the people.

peace out :)

I concur, not gonna nab the Clinton vote.

I wish Mr. Love would be syndicated by the planet. I don’t always agree with him but at least he brings SOME alternate viewpoint.

That’s not to say she might not get some women’s votes, but it won’t be the ones that were going to vote for Clinton.

Myself, I think you are just an opportunist who frames everything in what is best for you at the time. I challenge you to make similar ridiculous claims about the democratic ticket. You won’t since that isn’t your end goal, aka it isn’t in your interest even though the same arguments can be flipped as others have already noted. From what I have read about your politics, you have never looked at anything objectively and never found the real talking points which might bolster your case. Instead, you have preferred to throw around reactionist hyperbole with no real thought or insight.

Be sure that one of the things that could scuttle Obama’s chances of being elected is indigent Europeans (or any foreigner) such as yourself. It’s not that your opinion doesn’t matter but you don’t have a vote and no one likes to be nagged by people who don’t have a say. Think of it like KDE folks trying to effect what decisions GNOME folks make but on a much more important scale. Put it this way, by you framing your argument the way you did, you have effectively said that people in the US can’t think for themselves and won’t do the right thing come election time. You might not mean it that way but that is how condescending it came off.

Oh, but you have said in the past that you should have a say since the US election effects the whole world. Well then you are being an opportunist and hypocrite again because that goes against your whole “real male feminist”, feel good, stump speech. Lets replace women with some countries - “Saying that because some countries have not always gotten the same rights and “therefore” must get some sort of a free bump, is positive discrimination.”