What’s Wrong with the World

Or, regardless of the follies of feminism, maybe a little more statistics literacy all round would be in order?

Unrelated, but still good news... someone finally did to this child murderer what a court should have done years ago.

[SB: Mike T, you disgrace yourself and you disgrace this site. Do you really think that random malcontents should be celebrated for usurping the legitimate functions of the courts?]

I disagree. Good news is when justice is done by those possessing lawful authority. Murder is never good news.

Peace,

RdP

I disagree. Good news is when justice is done by those possessing lawful authority. Murder is never good news.

I could sympathize with that statement if it were not a man who made his money chopping up and mutilating viable unborn children. Tiller was a moral criminal on par with few men in the history of the United States.

Grave sin on the victim's part can never justify an act of murder.

Peace,

RdP

That's my last off-topic comment. I apologize for participating in hijacking the combox.

--RdP

I'm with Mike T. This is good news: a killing of a monster in defense of the innocent. I have no more problem with him being killed (not murdered) than with attempts on Hitler's life - which is to say, none.

[SB: have you completely taken leave of your senses? Do you *like* being marginalized?]

Anyhow, as for Ross's article, the thing that struck me about his usual (lame) attempts at "even-handedness" is that even most of the social ills that he says feminists and social conservatives "can agree on" are the result of feminism, either directly or indirectly, and can only be fought by fighting feminism, and the liberal "ethic" in general.

You guys just reminded me why whenever I want to see what's wrong with the world, I come to this blog. If you're not discussing why Muslims shouldn't be allowed to immigrate, you're talking about how murdering an abortion doctor in his church is morally permissible.

[SB: Casey, I don't think that it's morally permissible to murder an abortionist, either in his church or out of it.

But I also prefer not to censor comments unless absolutely necessary.]

Not just an abortion doctor, but a partial birth abortion doctor. And not just a partial birth abortion doctor, but one who got away with multiple cases of malpractice in which he failed to get a second opinion before he want ahead with the abortion (Why should caution be taken when it comes to something as trivial as the lives of fully grown infants, after all? I mean, the guy's gotta eat!).

It certainly won't solve everything wrong with the world, but a think a world in which such individuals must live in fear of operating is a better one.

And the fact that this guy was killed inside his "church" just makes it more appropriate. I hope they never manage to scrub the blood off the carpet. I thought Vox Day captured my disgust well in one of his comments (scroll down):

"Have a good day at the office, dear?"

"Well, one of the little bastards was a stubborn little son of a gun, but he finally quit squirming around after I jammed the scissors through his skull the second time."

"Oh, that's too bad. You'd better get changed now. We're hosting the Bible study group here tonight, remember, the MacElroys are out of town this week."

Back on topic...

What women are finally discovering is that most jobs really do suck and provide no sense of personal reward. Unfortunately, now that the labor pool has dramatically increased in size, the prospects are very poor that the average man will ever be able to reasonably support a family on just his income. Women have caught themselves in a vicious cycle, and Douthat's proposals regarding policy won't change that.

Cool. I just hope the FBI is monitoring these boards so that they can find the next domestic terrorist before it's too late.

Robert P. George:

"Whoever murdered George Tiller has done a gravely wicked thing. The evil of this action is in no way diminished by the blood George Tiller had on his own hands. No private individual had the right to execute judgment against him. We are a nation of laws. Lawless violence breeds only more lawless violence. Rightly or wrongly, George Tilller was acquitted by a jury of his peers. 'Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.' For the sake of justice and right, the perpetrator of this evil deed must be prosecuted, convicted, and punished. By word and deed, let us teach that violence against abortionists is not the answer to the violence of abortion. Every human life is precious. George Tiller's life was precious. We do not teach the wrongness of taking human life by wrongfully taking a human life."

[SB: Very well said by Prof. George.]

I have no idea how the threadjack got going here, but Mike T is right to try to get back on-topic. I also agree with him that Douthat's "proposals" (which are so vague that they almost aren't proposals at all) aren't going to solve anything. Even America, wealthy though we still are, cannot possibly give _every_ worker flex hours so that somehow Mom and Dad can juggle jobs and not have to put the child(ren) in daycare. Some workers, yes. Many workers, no. The tension is going to be there for most couples where both parents work. Putting the genie back in the bottle is very hard, but in some cases at least it's a matter of priorities. I remember reading an interview a few years ago with, I think it was, KJL (someone correct me if I'm wrong) about putting her kids in daycare. She was expressing some guilt about it to an author who had written a book questioning the whole "kids are better in daycare" shtick. What struck me was that nobody--neither KJL nor the woman she was talking with--suggested _moving_. Neither of them said, "You know, the DC area is darned expensive. Maybe things would be easier for you and your family if you lived somewhere else."

Lydia,

Some workers, yes. Many workers, no. The tension is going to be there for most couples where both parents work. Putting the genie back in the bottle is very hard, but in some cases at least it's a matter of priorities.

It's first and foremost about what you chose to do with your life. If your job isn't in a skilled profession with a reasonable barrier to entry, forget about it. Only providence or blind luck will help you, unless you're an entrepreneur.

The feminists made Simone de Beauvoir's dream of women being prohibited from staying at home a reality, even if they did so by economics and not force of law. You would have to change the entire marriage dynamic back to make it possible for the minority of career-oriented women to coexist with the women who would prefer to spend most of their time with their kids and only a little at work.

I don't think that social conservatives are ready to address all of the related variables like no fault divorces, child custody and others needed to create the sort of environment that is conducive to women being able to prioritize motherhood and marriage over work. I mean for God's sake, most social conservatives' idea of solving the divorce dilemma is to tell men to "man up" rather than dealing with the fact that women not only initiate three quarters of all divorces, but most of those cases are no fault divorces.

I have no idea how the threadjack got going here, but Mike T is right to try to get back on-topic

Really? Mike T isn't right period. His vigilante rhetoric simply serves to stigmatize genuine pro-lifers.

He got it going by churlishly celebrating Tiller's assassination;
Unrelated, but still good news... someone finally did to this child murderer what a court should have done years ago.

Thankfully Reginald and Keith responded, or many might mistake Deuce, Mike T and the silence that greeted their comments from others here at this site as representative of the pro-life movement.

In addition to the moral dimensions attached to this crime, Tiller's murder has practical consequences which Casey hints at. Homeland Security can now apply its craft at harrassing and intimidating pro-lifers who bear Christian witness. But, yeah Mike T's right to get everybody on topic. Unreal.

Well, first of all we have to be wary of these studies. Here's one showing that having kids makes you less happy: http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm?volumeID=22&editionID=174&ArticleID=1493.

Amanda Marcotte uses this study as a reason to think that the solution to the problem identified in the study Douthat cites is simply that no one should have kids: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/yes_this_was_published_in_a_major_newspaper_in_the_year_2009/.

That said, I should think that there's another response: maybe happiness isn't the most important thing. Maybe having the freedom to decide your own fate is a good thing (so, even if feminism makes women less happy, it doesn't follow from that that feminism hasn't done a lot of good things in getting women to the point where many of them have a genuine choice in what kind of life they want to lead--assuming that the feminist movement is, indeed, responsible for that, rather than, say, capitalism), and maybe following one's biological imperative and having kids, even if it doesn't make you happy, is also a good thing.

Unrelated, but still good news... someone finally did to this child murderer what a court should have done years ago.

So Fr. Corapi is right after all --

Some supposedly Pro-life folks would actually go to the lengths of justifying outright murder while using even Scripture as valid support for their otherwise heinous actions.

Unbelievable.

I want to help contribute to the threadjack.

To second Kevin's point, you should see what they're writing over at Pandagon about what Tiller's murder says about the pro-life movement. In a nutshell, they're saying that the pro-life movement is responsible for the murder (interestingly, this suggests to one of the contributors that this logic would also implicate Islam for 9/11, but said contributor explains why the pro-life movement bears responsibility while Islam doesn't). You can find the Pandagoners' thinking by clicking the links below (warning--I haven't read any of the pieces fully, but I assume that there's a lot of foul language and imagery in their writings):

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/parallels_and_priorities/

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the_non_violent_anti_abortion_activists/

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/so_how_does_oreilly_feel_about_the_assassination_of_george_tiller/

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/anti_choice_violence_and_why_it_puts_common_ground_into_question/

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/not_to_be_that_guy/

That said, I should think that there's another response: maybe happiness isn't the most important thing. Maybe having the freedom to decide your own fate is a good thing (so, even if feminism makes women less happy, it doesn't follow from that that feminism hasn't done a lot of good things in getting women to the point where many of them have a genuine choice in what kind of life they want to lead--assuming that the feminist movement is, indeed, responsible for that, rather than, say, capitalism), and maybe following one's biological imperative and having kids, even if it doesn't make you happy, is also a good thing.

Basic economics limit what women can do today. Since so many women enter the economy, the value of labor is depressed from what it used to be when most middle and upper class women married and stayed at home. As such, it is now very difficult for women to choose to stay at home with their kids.

If I were Mike T., I too would want to change the subject away from my view that some murder is morally praiseworthy. "good news... someone finally did to this child murderer what a court should have done years ago." It's good to read that at least some pro-lifers on this board will actually stand up against that statement rather than pretending like it never happened.

Like I said before, even the problems that Ross says that feminists and social conservatives can agree on are largely the result of feminist, and there's simply no feasible way that they could join forces on them.

For instance, the idea of a social stigma on transient fathers. You can't simply conjure up a social stigma out of nowhere. Social stigmas only arise when most of society agrees that something is bad, and for largely the same reasons. Social conservatives and feminists aren't going to be able to do it all by themselves, especially when feminists are otherwise trying to marginalize social conservatives. How are you going to get socially liberal men to join in a stigmatization of themselves?

Besides, the behavior we're talking about has become more common as a result of the de-stigmatization of sexual license in general. And that, in turn, has been largely fueled by feminists. It's simply the flip-side, and the direct result, of the "sexually liberated woman". Speaking of which, it seems to me that the "sexually liberated woman" deserves as much stigmatization for this mess as the men who use the opportunities handed to them.

And even if the behavior could be stigmatized, it wouldn't accomplish anything unless the stigmatization caused more discomfort to baby-daddy fathers than spending the rest of their lives tied to women they don't really love children they don't really want. Throwing a little stigmatization onto the current situation won't accomplish anything. In truth, these men are already stigmatized to a large degree, but they simply don't care. Society itself needs to be reorganized back to a more family-conducive configuration - and feminists aren't about to participate in a return to the "patriarchy".

Then there's Ross's suggestion that we make it easier to "balance work and motherhood". This is so vague as to be meaningless, and he offers no suggestions. And, at bottom, it's a logical contradiction: The more you work, the less time you can spend with your kids, period. Anything that makes it easier for mothers to work will encourage them to spend less time with their kids. Anything that makes it easier for them to spend time nurturing the kids will encourage them to work less. Even the most ingeniously crafted policies will never square a circle.

Or perhaps he's advocating that women get paid more than men for the same amount of work, to make up for the time they need to spend off to take care of their kids. In which case, how is that "conservative" in any sense at all, much less socially conservative?

Besides, last I checked, making motherhood easier wasn't on the feminist short list, or even the long one, so I'm not sure what sort of cooperation Ross is hoping for.

It just seems to me to be more of the convictionless difference-splitting, and bending over backwards to show liberals what a nice, unthreatening, open-minded egalitarian he is, that frustrates me in almost everything Ross writes.

Oh, and by the way, I personally would love to discuss this Tiller thing more, and I stand by what I said, but I apologize for participating in a thread hijack.

Casey, just cherry-picking comments not even written by the site contributors, eh? Or did you not notice RdP's comments?

Good, fair comment there. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Whoops, didn't refresh the board to see the latest comments. Glad to see Casey has at last recognized the anti-murder comments and isn't condemning the entire site for the foolish comment of a single non-contributor.

Casey, just cherry-picking comments not even written by the site contributors, eh? Or did you not notice RdP's comments?

Yep and Casey acknowledged them. He also noticed the rebuttals that weren't made. He wasn't alone and it hardly seems like grounds for chasing him out. Unless you want a forum full of Deuce's and people who rely on a literal interpretation of the Old Testament to inform their sense of justice.

Just read your acknowledgement Albert. Sorry.

I, too, am deeply shocked by the lawless violence against Tiller. Indeed, if not the cheerful fact that the pig is dead now I would be inconsolable.

Yes, what a remarkable way to exemplify and herald the so-called "PRO-LIFE" cause: to promote & even participate in outright murder!

Y'all are no different than the murderous fiends you vehemently detest!

Go adopt a different label by which to call yourselves; furthermore, don't even dare call yourselves "Christian", less you qualify Hitler himself as being such.

I can't understand you guys. This is the most blatant thread-jack. Go write your own post on your own blog.

I can't understand you guys. This is the most blatant thread-jack. Go write your own post on your own blog.

My apologies. I let a mild case of schadenfreude get the better of me and it spiraled out of control.

Well, in all honesty, it takes two to tango. Sure, one person expressed some mild schadenfreude ... and then some self-righteous prigs expressed self-righteous priggery.

Heh. I'm pretty sure I'm not the first person on WWWTW to express moral indignation, so I'm not quite sure why I'm being singled out (unless of course it's because you're down with cold-blooded murders of abortion doctors in their churches).

unless of course it's because you're down with cold-blooded murders of abortion doctors in their churches

I am not so much down with it as entirely apathetic. Much in the same way that I would be if the warden of a Laogai in modern China or a concentration camp commander fell victim to the family of one of their internees. He who lives by the sword, and all that...

Usually people who are "entirely apathetic" about x do not call x "good news."

Well, in all honesty, it takes two to tango. Sure, one person expressed some mild schadenfreude ... and then some self-righteous prigs expressed self-righteous priggery.

Oh, that's right, Ilion -- it isn't self-righteous priggery to engage in mob mentality as a certain interlocutor did on the thread and to promote violent murder of abortion doctors as well as laud those who actually do so; remarkable.

Oh, that's right, Ilion -- it isn't self-righteous priggery to engage in mob mentality as a certain interlocutor did on the thread and to promote violent murder of abortion doctors as well as laud those who actually do so; remarkable.

What's remarkable is that you consistently show that you don't have the brain power to separate things like schadenfreude from promoting the activity.

Mike T,

What's so remarkable about yourself is how you seem to think that "Pro-Life" activities include the cold-blooded murder of abortion doctors.

How incredibly Christian!

Somehow or other, this thread seems to have turned into a discussion of the murder of George Tiller.

Rather than close it down, I guess I'll just keep listening in. Just to see where it all goes.

Kevin, I was silent on Mike T & The Deuce's comments only because I was out of the building at the time. I entirely agree with your take on those comments.

I've been trying to shut it down, but it didn't work. I thought I'd leave it to you after that, Steve.

Thanks Steve, and glad you gave folks the opportunity to go on record.

Kevin:

Just read your acknowledgement Albert. Sorry.

Rohan Swee, I read the linked post, and I didn't find it very convincing if your goal was to undermine the statistical rigor of the NBER paper's conclusions. The post's author, who is not an economist, is simply opining that a small, statistically significant change does not merit Douthat's claim that men are happier than women in post-feminist America. But just because men are happier than women to a small degree doesn't negate the truth of Douthat's claim, especially if one looks at the very chart your linked post displays and notes the general trajectories of happiness for men and women since the 1970s. And that's seems to be the best chart they can find, which isn't even that helpful because you can't see the individual years on the x-axis.

The NBER paper's abstract confirms the accuracy of Douthat's characterization:

By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men. The paradox of women's declining relative well-being is found across various datasets, measures of subjective well-being, and is pervasive across demographic groups and industrialized countries. Relative declines in female happiness have eroded a gender gap in happiness in which women in the 1970s typically reported higher subjective well-being than did men. These declines have continued and a new gender gap is emerging -- one with higher subjective well-being for men.

Nothing here seems unclear or overstated, and the fact that the declines are small is irrelevant to the existence of the declines--especially during decades of great material prosperity and advances in women's rights--and in light of the pervasiveness of the declines across demographic groups, data sets, and countries. Another objection in the post is that the happiness measures are self-report measures. But the author does not argue or demonstrate that self-report, in all or in this case, is misleading, and there seems to be no reason to believe it is.

Lastly, there isn't any statistical analysis done by the author to disprove the statistical analysis of the NBER paper authors, which is odd in light of your condescending claim that "a little more statistics literacy" is in order.

Am I the only person to notice the first post? This whole study is full of bogus statistics. If you want to dig your heels into feminism, look at the effects of divorce and single parenting on children. The statistics there seem stronger.

Albert: thanks for responding to Rohan Swee's initial comment, just about exactly as I would have, had I not been distracted by extraneous matters.

Swee's snark about "statistics literacy" was just silly.

Anonymous at 3:01 PM: please...elaborate.