I Look Down On Young Women With Husbands And Kids And I’m Not Sorry

By hormonal feminist AMY GLASS.  She must dislike her own mother and her own birth and her own upbringing.  If she does she deserves our pity

Every time I hear someone say that feminism is about validating every choice a woman makes I have to fight back vomit.

Do people really think that a stay at home mom is really on equal footing with a woman who works and takes care of herself? There’s no way those two things are the same. It’s hard for me to believe it’s not just verbally placating these people so they don’t get in trouble with the mommy bloggers.

Having kids and getting married are considered life milestones. We have baby showers and wedding parties as if it’s a huge accomplishment and cause for celebration to be able to get knocked up or find someone to walk down the aisle with. These aren’t accomplishments, they are actually super easy tasks, literally anyone can do them. They are the most common thing, ever, in the history of the world. They are, by definition, average. And here’s the thing, why on earth are we settling for average?

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If women can do anything, why are we still content with applauding them for doing nothing?

I want to have a shower for a woman when she backpacks on her own through Asia, gets a promotion, or lands a dream job not when she stays inside the box and does the house and kids thing which is the path of least resistance. The dominate cultural voice will tell you these are things you can do with a husband and kids, but as I’ve written before, that’s a lie. It’s just not reality.

You will never have the time, energy, freedom or mobility to be exceptional if you have a husband and kids.

I hear women talk about how “hard” it is to raise kids and manage a household all the time. I never hear men talk about this. It’s because women secretly like to talk about how hard managing a household is so they don’t have to explain their lack of real accomplishments. Men don’t care to “manage a household.” They aren’t conditioned to think stupid things like that are “important.”

Women will be equal with men when we stop demanding that it be considered equally important to do housework and real work. They are not equal. Doing laundry will never be as important as being a doctor or an engineer or building a business. This word play is holding us back.

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The Court, the buffer zone, and the marketplace of ideas

by Jeff Jacoby

FOR ANYONE having trouble understanding why the Massachusetts law requiring a 35-foot "buffer zone" at abortion clinics is so offensive to the First Amendment, there was a moment during the oral arguments in McCullen v. Coakley — the Supreme Court case challenging the law — that crystallized the issue perfectly.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley talks to reporters outside the Supreme Court following oral arguments in the abortion-clinic buffer zone case.

Massachusetts officials have always justified the 2007 buffer law as a narrow, impartial response to the problem of obstruction, disorder, and intimidation of women seeking abortions. That concern is understandably taken seriously in the state where John Salvi murdered two employees of Planned Parenthood clinics in 1994.

But federal and state statutes already make it illegal to interfere with anyone's access to an abortion clinic, let alone to terrorize or harass women with violence or the threat of violence. No one disputes the constitutionality of those statutes, just as no one challenges Section (e) of the Bay State's buffer-zone law, which allows anyone who "knowingly obstructs, detains, hinders, impedes or blocks another person's entry to or exit from a reproductive health care facility" to be punished with fines and prison.

It is only the 35-foot exclusion zone that raises serious free-speech concerns.

Public buffer zones aren't unknown in American life — courts have upheld speech and protest restrictions around funerals, political conventions, and polling places. Even the Supreme Court plaza is off-limits to demonstrators and protests. But such "time, place, and manner" regulations must be scrupulously neutral. What pro-life advocates and even pro-choice civil libertarians have maintained all along is that this buffer zone isn't.

Jennifer Miller, the Massachusetts assistant attorney general who was lead counsel for the state, tried to persuade the justices that this was only a "congestion case." The buffer zone is aimed only at "conduct" occurring within 35 feet of clinic entrances, she said. Any effect on speech "is simply incidental to the permissible conduct." When Justice Stephen Breyer prompted Miller to explain why Massachusetts lawmakers had enacted a buffer zone far larger than the 8-foot bubble the Supreme Court had upheld in a 2000 Colorado case, she cited evidence of "pro-choice advocates swearing and screaming at pro-life advocates. . . . You had the Pink Group, which is a pro-choice organization, pushing and shoving and jockeying for position."

Well, that was a novelty: You don't usually hear the most draconian abortion-clinic buffer zone in the country defended as a response to disorderly behavior by pro-choice rowdies. But it didn't change a fundamental problem with Massachusetts' law: It explicitly exempts "employees or agents" of abortion clinics from the restrictions that apply to pro-lifers.

That was the point that Justice Samuel Alito deftly drove home in the oral argument's most memorable exchange.

Let's imagine, he said to Miller, that a patient about to go into an abortion clinic is approached by two women. The first, who works for the clinic, says: "Good morning, this is a safe facility." The other one, who isn't an employee, says: "Good morning, this is not a safe facility." According to Massachusetts law, the first woman has done nothing wrong, while the second has committed a crime.

"And the only difference between the two is that they've expressed a different viewpoint," Alito observed. "Now how can a statute like that be considered viewpoint-neutral?"

Eleanor McCullen, who challenged Massachusetts' buffer-zone law, at the US Supreme Court building on Jan. 15.

Miller gave it her best shot, insisting that the law isn't focused in the two speakers' opinions — only "on what they're doing in the buffer zone." The pro-life speaker wasn't guilty of expressing a disfavored opinion, Miller said; she was guilty of being within the 35-foot perimeter without a permissible reason.

But that only begged Alito's question, and Justice Anthony Kennedy didn't let Miller get away with it. Of course the Massachusetts law doesn't overtly ban people with anti-abortion viewpoints from crossing into the buffer zone. But in practical terms, that's the law's inescapable consequence, Kennedy said. "Are you saying that the consequences of what [legislators] write are irrelevant to this argument?" Ouch.

McCullen v. Coakley is bound up with abortion politics, but it could just as easily be a case about a buffer zone that barred pro-union activists from getting within 35 feet of a worksite where there was a labor dispute. It could be about antinuclear politics or animal welfare or gun control. Governments have the right to preserve public order, but only as a last resort may they do so by interfering with the marketplace of ideas. Is a 35-foot buffer zone really the last resort? I'd be surprised if the court says yes.

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The death of humility is nothing to boast about

I have been writing a series of essays for Radio 3 about national characteristics that have, for better or worse (usually worse), been dispensed with in the past 30 years. These include respect for manual labour, regarding Sunday as special, not being greedy about food, gentility… and the regarding of modesty or humility as significant virtues.

Of all of them, I now realise, the last is the most striking change. It is self-evident that modesty is not prized highly in this age of the selfie, Simon Cowell, the celebrity memoir, the first-person blog, and industry awards. (For reasons too strange to go into, I used to be a regular attender of what were called “The Oscars of the Bus Industry”, until the organisers received a legal letter from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.)

I do not claim to be very humble myself. In fact, part of my animus about these changes is that they have occurred, so to speak, without anyone asking me, and in defiance of injunctions drummed into me as a child, such as – in the case of modesty: “Keep your voice down”, “Don’t draw attention to yourself”; or, if I’d already drawn attention to myself and it was too late to do anything about it, “You’re a right bighead, aren’t you?”. What was the source of these injunctions? Perhaps the New Testament and “the meek shall inherit the earth”. (The American humorist Kin Hubbard once wrote, “It’s going to be fun to watch and see how long the meek can keep the earth after they inherit it.”)

The virtue of modesty was also constantly promoted in the literature I read. Whenever I see the manager of Chelsea, José Mourinho, the self-styled “special one”, who begins every sentence “I sink” (“I think”), I recall the sporting heroes of the comics I read as a boy, such as Billy Dane, hero of the strip called Billy’s Boots. Billy knew there was nothing special about him; that all his skill was down to the ghostly properties of his boots, which had formerly belonged to a brilliant striker. Billy was a modest lad, who took a stoical attitude to failing his 11-plus. Or there was Alf Tupper, The Tough of the Track, a welder who slept on a mattress in his auntie’s kitchen, but competed to the highest of Corinthian ideals. He made a habit of rescuing little old ladies in distress, and celebrated his victories with a plate – or newspaper – of fish and chips.

Billy and Alf were working-class variants of the Victorian public-school ideal of manly reserve and stoicism, qualities thought necessary for running an Empire. They are said to have been summed up in Kipling’s poem, If (“don’t look too good nor talk too wise”). The mindset reached its peak in the First World War, currently being commemorated with a degree of hype that contrasts with the reticence shown by the survivors, of whom there are none left.

In his book, The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell discusses the style of “utter sang-froid” or “British phlegm”. The danger is minimised, and the effect could be dryly comic. Fussell quotes the war diary of one A Surfleet who (referring to howitzer rounds) wrote, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these 5.9’s”, and a general who noted, “On my usual afternoon walk today a shrapnel shell scattered a shower of bullets around me in an unpleasant manner.”

In my late teens, I read John Buchan’s novels featuring Richard Hannay, which are very much informed by the First World War. In Greenmantle, Hannay introduces his friend Sandy Arbuthnot. “Sandy’s not the chap to buck about himself,” he observes, having just discovered that Arbuthnot has been governing Turkey from behind the scenes. In The Three Hostages, the chum is Tom Greenslade: “Nothing came amiss to him in talk… everything in the world except himself.” In The Island of Sheep it’s Lombard who “never paraded his learning”, and who, furthermore, appears to have no Christian name.

Sometimes all modern life seems a refutation of those ideals of self-effacement and humility. Then again, those men probably did not need to boast, whereas we, in our ultra-competitive globalised world of short-term contracts and job insecurity, cannot afford the luxury of reticence. So, in my profession, everyone must be “bestselling” or “award-winning”. If you’re neither of the above, you might be able to survive for a while as “much loved”.

The bighead is now the norm, whereas in the books of my youth, the boastful character was a freak, who pointed up the virtues of the hero, as Falstaff does with Prince Hal. So Tintin had Captain Haddock; Winnie-the-Pooh had Tigger; and Ratty and Mole had self-described “handsome, popular and successful” Mr Toad, and his self-advertising motor car. I think of that vehicle when I note that, in my boyhood, personalised number plates were an extreme rarity; but there are now four million, many sported in combination with smoked-glass windows. The driver seems to be saying, “Don’t look at me” and “Look at me” at the same time, although clearly the latter message predominates.

Of course, Mr Toad is life-enhancing, as was Kenneth Grahame’s role model for the character, Oscar (“nothing to declare but my genius”) Wilde. Wilde was challenging the inhibitions of society, and a modest character is, admittedly, sometimes an oppressed character. This is true of many of Dickens’s simpering women. Charlotte Brontë described Esther Summerson of Bleak House (“I have not by any means a quick understanding”) as “weak and twaddling”, and she is actually one of Dickens’s more interesting females. Enshrinement of humility also offers the temptation of simulating that quality, hence Uriah Heep: “ 'Be ’umble, Uriah,’ says father to me, 'and you’ll get on.’ ”

There’s little danger of anyone trying that trick in 2014, when humility – the genuine article, I mean – cuts so little ice.

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The ABC in their own charming words

Larry Pickering has some interesting hate-filled quotes from Australia's public broadcaster below

While Left-Green commercial media drowns in red ink, the taxpayer funded ABC, still pining for Gillard, continues to defy its charter, openly seeking to discredit and undermine the Abbott Government... and not a murmur of disapproval from the responsible Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

Decent journalists have departed the dying Fairfax Press in droves leaving the dross free to practise their treachery and disdain for middle ground politics.

Left-Green journalists have now taken to cannibalising their own with tweets regarding respected centre-ground journalist, Gerard Henderson with:

“Henderson…What a pompous, pretentious turd you are.” - Mike Carlton.

“What a haughty flapping half-arsed buffoon he is” - Malcolm Farr.

“You are a fool, Henderson, a malicious and mendacious piece of shit… Now F_ck off.” - Mike Carlton again.

“Old Australian saying. ‘He wouldn’t know a tram was up him unless the bell rang’. Wholly appropriate to Gerard Henderson” - Phillip Adams.

“Gerard [Henderson] is a complete f-ckwit”- Malcolm Farr again.

“The nation mourns Gerard Henderson. He’s in perfect health.” - Peter Van Onselen, SKY. I guess that means they disagree with "The Australian's" Gerard.

Sacked Left-Green scribes have drifted to the ABC, The Conversation, The Guardian On-line and other far Left media.

Sky gives Green Senators (the insane Milne and loopy Hanson-Young) exposure way beyond their political station.

Channel 7 is a rats’ nest of anti-Australian Lefties.

Channel 10 persists with "warmist" Bongiorno and his crazy pro-illegal immigrant stance.

Who really cares, they will die by their own swords soon enough, but the ABC belongs to us... and we want it back.

The pro-Jakarta public broadcaster has now placed itself firmly within the Indonesian crime syndicates’ interests and has incredibly implied the Australian Navy has insisted illegals hold on to hot pipes!

    Only a demented fool or a Green would believe the RAN practises torture.

The ABC has been allowed to run riot for far too long and the Gillard-appointed Leftie Chairman, Spigelman, and his co-conspirator, MD Mark Scott, are past their Labor Party use-by dates.

If the fiery anger in Morrison’s and Abbott’s eyes means anything then the guillotine is about to fall and Turnbull had better quickly decide what he wants to do...

...fiddle with the NBN and his donger at the same time or begin acting like a responsible Minister.

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here. 

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