Snips and Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails

Okay, I am just going to come out and say it. Feminism, with their methods of fighting, their arguments, rhetoric and hypocrisies are much alike, “moderate” Islam, pro-affirmative actionists and what I consider to be a predominantly Indian trait¹.

The argument:

1. Women would NOT go raping men.² (Context: If stereotypical sexual roles were reversed).

   That is perhaps³ as far from the truth as the myth that pedophilia did not exist (in the 70s and 80s), or that women were not sexually aggressive with minors, especially with minors under their care.⁴ The fact remains, that most feminists will gladly enjoy the support of the existing gender stereotypes in order to gain advantage in this “battle” of the sexes. Most women, especially feminists, that I have encountered, either find it hard to believe, or are incapable of entertaining the notion that women can be sexually aggressive with adult men. It stems from the stereotypical notions that men want/need sex all the time, and any offers for sex are by definition, not unwanted. That is just as sexist as a guy claiming dominion over “his woman’s sexual real-estate”. As for the original argument, it is only rhetoric, since there is no way we can find for absolutely certain the actual results. However, if nascent studies of female sexual aggression towards men are any indication, the first argument might quite easily be rebutted and debunked.

2. Men are sexist.

   Yes, some men are. Perhaps I am too. But I would rather test this with a simple hypothetical scenario. Answers to this question help us understand who really is sexist.
   
   Stop being a whiny little runt and grow a pair.
   
   A guy saying that to a woman is… a jerk (using societies predetermined standards).
   A woman saying that to a man is… assertive.
   
   Somehow, when women proudly proclaim their superiority over men, claiming men think from their penises and only use a fraction of their brain as compared to women, they are not being sexist.
   
   So, as is quite visible from the double standards, as I am going to be judged as being sexist no matter what I do or say in my life, I would like to earn that sentence… so here are my parting thoughts on men being sexist. We are.
   
   Q.What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?
   A. Nothing. She has already been told twice.

3. The Indian feminist and the dichotomy of Affirmative action.

   This argument is only valid for non-backward caste women that are anti-affirmative action in relation with the correction of India’s caste system. This might be a small group, but in India, it is a significant proportion of people in the “limelight”. The average feminist⁵ is against the affirmative action policy of the Indian government as a means to correct the (caste based) social structure that has been in social turmoil for centuries. My stance on this subject matters not. What is telling, however, is that the same affirmative action is rampant, and lobbied towards by feminist groups in India. With reservation for women in almost every sphere, from bus seats across the country, to entire railway cabins (in Bombay’s⁶ urban railway transportation system), to government jobs to the legal system⁷, it is insanely hypocritical to criticize affirmative action for backward castes while lobbying aggressively for affirmative action for women.

   The andro-feminist⁸ lobbyists and/or apologist camps are either in for the rhetoric⁹, or patronize any actual debate by lackadaisical (at best) propaganda¹⁰.

   “sorry our point of views don’t meet, since i geniuely want reservation for women even if caste based reservation is removed….the needs of women is better understood by a women and not men…. some men show respect to women not all…..u r blog show ur insecurity….if u hav mother , wife n daughter ask them to read it, they might gv u the right opinion…” [sic]

   The rhetoric of this argument is quite lucidly and effectively rebutted within the same web-blog.

   “You are basing your ideas on assumptions and pre-conceived notions such as:

   1. Women understand women better.
   (By that token of false logic, men understand men better. Therefore, no laws that affect men should be made by women.)
   2. Women are better than men.
   (Do I need to say something? Really?)
   3. Men are privileged and women are victims.
   4. Women alone are discriminated (against).
   5. Men’s rights constitute insecurity.
   (Being concerned about men’s rights, in a day and age that is saturated with women’s rights groups is not being sexist or insecure. It is insecure in so much that we do not want to sit by, watching the freak show, only to find we are left with none of our basic rights and freedoms. This can be illustrated by the adoption laws of various countries, and father’s rights. It is only gaining prevalence, that gender bears no significance as far as child interests)
   7. Some men show respect to women (Which implies that women alone should be respected and with an assumption that men are automatically respected)."

   [Changed for formatting and omission of point 6 due to out of context information. Italics indicate content added]

   The same rhetoric is repeated on Wikipedia’s article relevant to the Women’s Reservation Bill of India that aims to incorporate a 33% reservation for women in the upper and lower houses of the union parliament as well as in state legislative assemblies.

   • Due to female foeticide and issues related to women's health, sex ratio in India is alarming at 1.06 males per female. It is expected this will change the society to give equal status to women.^{[citation needed]}
   
   
   • Women are supposedly more resistant to corruption. Therefore, this bill might prove to be a factor restraining the growth of corruption.^{[citation needed]}”

   [citation needed tag to the Wikipedia article did not exist prior to the conception of this post, Saturday, July 24, 2010]

   No original research is cited for any of these claims. They are, in principle, a fallacy from false assumption. For instance, “women are supposedly more resistant to corruption” is a false assumption since there is no reason to believe that statement. I could submit my own rebuttal committing the same logical fallacies that are committed by feminists¹¹, but hey, some of us actually have ethical responsibilities to the truth.

4. Equal Work for equal Pay.

   The equal work for equal pay argument, at the surface seems like a valid concern. After all, why shouldn’t women get paid equally for performing the same work as their male counterparts? It seems only fair. However, the equal pay fight is not a request for equal pay for equal work, though that is the premise. Financial equality is an attempt at equal pay for equivalent work.
   
   The perfect example of this is Wimbledon and women’s tennis.
   
   The same is true in countless other disciplines (of sport, at least). Why do women’s leagues exist in other sports? Why don’t female cricketers, or baseball player, or basketball, football play in men’s leagues? Aren’t they “equal” to men in every way? Yet, they harp about the lack of interest in these disciplines from the general population. Perhaps because the level of competition in the women’s disciplines is hardly even a fraction of the level of competition, fitness and skill of their male counterparts, in this day and age.
   
   And in the event that these comments are misconstrued as being sexist, I am a big fan of Karnam Malleshwari, have always been. In spite of the fact that Women’s weightlifting is separate from Men’s. I have no misconceptions that men and women have evolved differently (biologically and physically) that it won’t be over-night, that women will be able to compete on a regular basis at the level men do (if at all that possibility exists). Keep in mind; this is true of (generalizing) strength and stamina sports. The same cannot be said of skill sports.

5. The Label Argument.

   Whenever men decide to take the offensive stance against feminisms ill’s we are suddenly met, with a defensive, pitiable¹²stance. The argument against all of the above 4 points takes on the form of “us and them” within the “realm”. Brands of feminism are invoked, and an adherence to a different brand can be prescribed as seen fit. It is, in essence the same argument that “moderate” Islam prescribes to.
   
   “We are not violent. Do not label an entire group because of a few miscreants.”
   Or
   “The Quran does not prescribe violence. If a muslim uses violence, he/she is not a muslim.”
   
   The same argument is used by feminists, claiming that radical feminism should not be used to tarnish the image of “real” feminism. However, the “qualitative” differences matter not when the quantitative damage is vast and can be enjoyed by feminists irrespective of their brand name.
   
   But I should make the concession for the possibility that I am wrong, or too harsh against feminists. Perhaps it is true. Why should all the feminists be tarnished because of certain brands of feminism? Oh well, because ALL men must pay for the sins of some? Because a guy in delhi cannot keep it in his pants, I must too be labeled as a sex-craving lunatic. Every guy can think only from his pants. Well fuck you to the women that prescribe to this double standard. If you can generalize all men based on the (horrific) actions of some, then you too should be able to face the criticism of the whole based on sub-sects of feminism. Some would argue an eye for an eye. Well, sure, I am all for that. Go rape those men that raped that innocent, helpless woman¹³, but don’t stand there, trying to poke my eyes out and expect me not to defend myself. And if the eye gouging gets too insistent, do not expect friendly counters.

Note:

1. I am talking about hypocrisy here, of course. If there was any doubt.

2. This is perhaps the oldest, most naïve, and dumbest argument I have heard for a pro-feminism stance.

3. I say “perhaps” because there isn’t really a way for us to find that out. Unless we find ourselves magically transformed into (or remotely viewing) an Amazonian civilization.

4. Female Sexual Abuse

5. I do not care what label of feminism you identify with. Neo or not, feminism is feminism.

6. It is Bombay. Fuck you to the self-proclaimed keepers of India’s future. Or lack of it.

7. Yes, laws can be made, with a bent towards affirmative action. Renuka Chaudhary, or as I like to refer to her, sexist bitch extraordinaire, has successfully done so with the Domestic Violence act. And yet, not the slightest of mutterings from these egalitarian feminists I am told exist. Seems kind of like the flying spaghetti monster.

8. A term I have coined, for there is a lacking of such. An Andro-feminist, is a male feminist lobbyist, either actively, or passively. These are men that have been so brainwashed into thinking themselves unworthy, sexist pigs, that they cannot rationally form an argument, unless their wives/mothers/sisters etc. tell them so.




9. Full Post Here

10. http://india_resource.tripod.com/caste-quotas.html
    “A humanities professor at IIT-Mumbai tried to argue that because "merit" isn't applied uniformly in the socio-economic sphere in India, one ought not be too perturbed over its sacrifice in India's centrally-funded institutions of higher learning. Moreover, he argued that merit was a concept that was "over-emphasized" because it was so fraught with human subjectivity and contextual sensitivities that it wasn't really possible to truly determine who was "meritorious" anyway. Jayati Ghosh (a British-educated JNU academic in the Prime Minister's Knowledge Commission) was cynically dismissive of the merit argument, opining that the IITs weren't institutions of merit anyway presumably because a Chinese study (of rather limited value and significance) had determined that because the IITs had produced no Nobel Prize winners, they could not be considered as institutions of any international import. Even though Ms Ghosh is neither a scientist nor an engineer by training (and does not appear to be particularly familiar with the biased methodology that was used in the Chinese study) Ms Ghosh enjoys the luxury of being taken seriously because of her political connections with the CPM.”

11. An example of such a logical fallacy would be:
    Benazir Bhutto, Mamata Bannerjee, Jayalalitha, and countless other female politicians are corrupt. Therefore female politicians are corrupt. Therefore an increased representation of women in parliaments will not reduce the corruption in the country.
    
    This logical fallacy is called Fallacy of accident or Sweeping generalization. See ITY, you don’t just learn “bad” words here.

12. argumentum ad misericordiam

13. It is startling how easily women transform their images from strong, capable and “equal” to, helpless as need suits them. To the few women that have confided how unsafe they feel in the streets (of India, usually) and their fears of male aggression, I find the best solution is to recommend mace/pepper spray. However, all these women have, by way of one nonsensical argument or another, convinced themselves of how ineffectual that would be.
    
    Female1: But what is common in most of my dreams is me, out on the roads all by myself…feeling so unsafe
    TDD: Buy yourself a pepper spray?
    Female1: I dont go out at night.

Red, White and Brown Nosed

For a man that makes his living off stereotypes, Russell Peters does not notice the dichotomy of assaulting the media for using stereotypes for furthering agendas and propagandas. But for those people that like intelligent humor, be it the wit and sarcasm of Yes, Minister, or… the wit and sarcasm of George Carlin, you will instantly notice the fallacy of Peters’ chosen words. He is a part of the media. But unfortunately his ignorance is shown by his inability to take part of the blame, or it just shows his hypocrisy.

In his “new” act, “Red, White and Brown”, Russell Peters claims to have found himself a new voice; retiring old jokes. As usual, his act is confused as he shuttles between his identity of a North American and his “cheap” accented brown identity, and in that we can take solace, that Russell Peters is Indian, not just genetically, but even culturally.¹ He is a true hypocrite; One that would do Mother India proud.

Russell Peters is a cult comedian, like George Lopez, or Dane Cook, mediocre comedians targeting fringe audiences and cults that they have cultivated. Perhaps with respect to the specifics of the jokes Peters is “fresh” but considering the subject matter remains the same as his earlier acts (same jokes about Indian cheapness, about Chinese accents, about Italian machismo…). And while there is some humor to be found even in repetition, it can only go so far. If Red, White and Brown weren’t advertised as a “new act”, perhaps this would be a good extension of his earlier acts… and amusing². However, this blatant attempt to beguile audiences or just his ignorance as to what constitutes a “new act” takes out some of the fun of watching a mediocre comedian.

After all, it doesn’t hurt if you are eating an egg salad sandwich, knowing that it is an egg salad sandwich and nothing more. But when you are served an egg salad sandwich, all while you were expecting smoked salmon, then it is just disingenuous; and you have every right to take it as an insult to your intelligence. After all, you just paid for something more!

P.S. I watched it on YouTube; “The new home of piracy”.

NB:

1. Peter’s attempts to make the distinction between his genetically derived Indian-ness, such as his skin color, his physical attributes versus Indian personality traits (which he claims not to have) is a large part of the act as he discusses his trip to India. It is only laughable that he does not notice how he undermines his own point!


2. Notice the distinction between amusing and funny. A good knock-knock joke is funny. Repeating a good joke over and over again, is at best… amusing.

Holy Wars

“In a short space of time all the people in the Delhi fort were put to the sword, and in the course of one hour the heads of 10,000 infidels were cut off. The sword of Islam was washed in the blood of the infidels, and all the goods and effects, the treasure and the grain which for many a long year had been stored in the fort became the spoil of my soldiers.”

Taken from the Tuzk-e-Taimuri‎, Timur’s (alleged) memoirs recount a fateful day of “ethnic cleansing” as he looted and plundered and amassed wealth and a haraam harem. I could see Timur being an egotistical, religious maniac, exaggerating his escapades to sound impressive; to furnish a permanent place in the annals of lunatic murderers. But in spite of his bloated ego, Timur’s intent is clear. The infidels must be purged. Allah’s will be carried out.

Elsewhere, less than a couple of centuries away, the French Religious wars raged on, 36 years, probably desensitizing a couple of generations of brie lovers to violence. The culture shock the French must have faced was thankfully short lived. Nearby, less than 20 years later, the Germans and the British would start one of their own wars based on their inability to agree on the details of what god “instructed” some random asshole on some remote mountain over a millennium ago. Over these 66 years… and one day, an estimated 15.6 Million people would be wasted away at god’s command¹.

Almost instinctively, the apologist is certain to point fingers at the murderous tendencies of prominent “atheist” mad men, Hitler² and Stalin³. While this argument has swiftly and effectively been rebutted by the “four horsemen”, I choose to show that the genocides and wars that raged from religious and theistic impetus have been far more gory, gruesome, blood curdling than the major wars of the 20^th century, The World Wars.

In comparison, the two world wars overshadow the two major religious wars (that I can recall) by sheer volume of cadavers. With conservative estimates of 19 and 40 million chronologically, they far outyield the 15 million estimated of the religious wars.

Tanks, mines, missiles, gunships, bombers, fighter planes, submarines, and of course, Fat Man and Little Boy have made the body count of the world war’s possible; making wars a little more impersonal in the 20^th century. The days of staring into the eyes of the enemy had been left behind in the medieval ages, to those who could stomach the blood and gore; to the pious. Technology in battle had the ability to delay the effect of battle, the effect waste of human life can have on a rational mind, only bringing it to the foreground post mortem.

But what the religious wars lose in body count, they make up for in sheer callousness and underestimation of human life. Staring into the enemy’s eyes, day after day, for decades together, mercilessly slaughtering, is a task that the religious masses seem to effortlessly pull off and master. Only god knows what devastation these armies would be capable of, if they had the resources of the 20^th century, with enough enemy bodies as in the 20^th century⁴.

1. These remain just the most obvious, bloody, and patent representations of religious violence. James Haught recounts other atrocities that have been committed by religion and the pious.

2. Hitler’s religious beliefs are still highly debated, and to this day, attempts to prove his atheistic ideology have been inconclusive. However, Hitler was a practicing Roman Catholic and remained one until his death.

There is an obvious rebuttal to this point of mine, and I will preempt it by offering my rebuttal, saving us some time.

Many claim that Hitler, an irreligious man (at least one who was against Christianity in his heart), used his ties with the roman catholic church to gain the sympathies of the catholics and protestants, and was nothing more than shrewd confidence trick. Having said that, it was the above mentioned churches that lent credibility to Hitler among the people of Germany, and more importantly, they were not against the bloodshed and means of the Nazis and Hitler. So as co-conspirators, the above mentioned churches are just as guilty as Hitler’s ideology (whatever it may be).

3. Hector Avalos, a scholar of the Bible, has in his book “Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence” claimed that Stalin “had a complex relationship with religious institutions in the Soviet Union.” I say claimed, as I have not read the book myself and rely on a source, while not completely reliable, certainly no worse than the monkey work contained in certain other texts.

4. The world population and its explosion has been a primarily 20^th century phenomenon. During the period of the two world wars, the population rose from about 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion, in spite of the massive bloodshed in the two wars, of 131 million or 0.131 billion, or more importantly 6.5 percent of the mean population. While the world population during the 100 year period of the two religious saw a negligible rise from 427,000,000 to 500,000,000 and the death toll at 3.5 percent.

While that figure might seem to indicate the brutality of the world wars, it is limited, as almost all statistics are by the “big picture”. The big picture here shows of a zealous war, fought with no major technological assistance, in just a small portion of the earth (the world wars were fought by 35 and 68 countries compared to a handful during the two medieval wars).

Gun Shy

"There is no reason for anyone in the country, for anyone except a police officer or a military person, to buy, to own, to have, to use, a handgun. The only way to control handguns use in this country is to prohibit the guns. And the only way to do that is to change the Constitution."

-- Michael Gartner

NY Times: Daily gun deaths in USA

Gun control is probably one of the most controversial debates in current day United States. After LGBT rights, abortion and possibly the death penalty, gun control is probably the most hotly debated issue. A pacifist for as long as I have thought about this question, everything seemed black and white. People for the right to bear arms have always struck me as a little crazy.

My first experience with a handgun was not so long ago. Even though it wasn’t loaded, the safety was on, I felt a bit like a geeky teen at the prom, just approached by the prettiest girl; apprehensive, panicky and definitely sweaty. I was silently relieved when the firearm was put back into its gun safe. Okay, not so silently. I even made it a point to vocally point out how uncomfortable I was, if my body language hadn’t already betrayed the fact.

Don’t get me wrong, I have always been in reverence of handguns. During my high school years (Junior college back home) I was quite the gun enthusiast, admiring their inherent beauty, while awestruck at their immeasurable power, but always too much of a pussy to ever venture into the real world of guns. Forensic science and firearm forensics especially, held me captivated. Fortunately, I told myself, firearms let go that strangling grip, of an invention that definitely would have been the end of me, and from a career that would definitely be a dead end. My knowledge of firearms, therefore, always remained nascent and underdeveloped.

It has been said that fear always springs from ignorance. It could be argued that this was the case with me and firearms. They would be right. I was soon to re-discover and re-think firearms; though not as blue eyed as my teen self. Having been on the Pro-gun control side of the issue, the arguments for gun control were sufficiently convincing to me. After all, who needs more guns in the hands of the corrupters of society?

But things would turn gray soon. Thanks in part to an “indie” movie that I accidentally came across (a sign from god? *^%K, I’m republican) tackling the very issue of gun control. Dear Wendy, probably one of the most hated movies (because it is “ideologically doctrinaire on the one hand and a wannabe hot youth movie on the other”) seemed to make sense to me. I guess I am THAT insane. The movie is about a pacifist youth, exploring guns, his fascination for it, and the eventual demise of his pacifist views when he is forced to use his guns, and on the law too!

People dislike this movie, because it is supposedly anti 2^nd amendment, and “talks about an issue the filmmakers know nothing about”, but for some reason I found it the exact opposite (again, only cranial misfirings to blame). The movie was a romanticized commentary on perceptions of guns, pacifism, pacifism and guns, their incompatibility etc. And for me, it began the dreaded thought process of the “morality” of gun culture.

While the movie had barely begun to make me think, barely budging me out of my comfort zone, another incident would force me on a fast track to reconsider my stance. The Mangalore Pub incident (where 40 politically backed psychopaths violently evacuated a pub of all its women, while battering them and assaulting any men that came to their aid, all in the name of Indian culture, while media and law enforcement paraded and silently witnessed, respectively) while initially leaving me unaffected and unruffled, as my capacity to withstand Indian stupidity and idiocy was assumedly at its limits; would soon turn to shock and squeamishness, as I witnessed the videos of the act. This was further compounded by the reactions to the incident, which I thought Indians would unanimously find revolting. What I was to discover, painted a very different India, from the one I was exposed to, during my formative years in three of India’s four metropolitans.

Apart from an unprecedented culture shock (one that I didn’t even notice when I first stepped onto US soil), these incidents forced me to empathize, (not with the women, for that would be patronizing) with the men that tried to protect their women (be it sister, girlfriend or just out of humanitarian kinship). I was forced to relive the scenario, for the terrible fear that gripped me, warned me of my unpreparedness for such an eventuality. “What would you do under these circumstances?”

The answer would not come, possibly because I really was unprepared, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. And being as physically advantaged as I am, there was no recourse in sight. That is when I came across Thomas Jefferson’s own views over guns. He opined that guns (as a symbol of power) are necessary for every citizen to hold onto, not to shoot down their neighbors dog, but to make sure no one else gets to shoot him down, or his rights.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.
--- Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785.

It can be argued, and rightly so, that Jefferson was in an era of the Wild West, where an honor code was sufficient to keep people from killing each other, which has been eroded away by people and, I hypothesize, their religion. In fact, since we are quoting Jefferson, here are some more, to get some perspective:

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

"We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."

--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816.

While the debate in America is a lot more complicated than Jefferson could have visualized, with all the (religious) nuts that roam around freely, I feel that India, which is in this regard more than a 100 years behind it’s time (arguably more), is yet to embark upon its true revolution. We are yet to fight for our freedom, and show that we will not stand for an aggressor, whether it is from within the state or from outside of it. All Gandhi did, was show to the world that we have the capacity to withstand immeasurable amounts of cruelty and injustice. And while Gandhi’s non-violence might have earned us some brownie points in international opinion, on our non-violent and non-aggressive stances, it has long been nullified with the history of violence since then. It is time; I think, that Indian’s re-evaluate their stance on guns. It is time we lose our sheepish naiveté, our misplaced mistrust of guns and our indoctrinated fear of revolutions.