On Sunday, September 12, 1999 6:17 AM James Veverka headbands@webtv.net
wrote:
> No, it's not You are confusing a very small minority of loud mouthed
> radical feminists with equity feminists that only seek simple outright
> equality and respect.
>
> The only men that complain are the mindless patriarchal social
> conservatives that have an agenda of getting their flock riled up. It
> is a black or white thing with these less than intelligent people.
>
> The right wing fascist goons like Rush, the Christian
> Reconstructionists, and their like stereotype women activists-feminists
> into one group. They call themselves "libertarian"; that is ludicrous
> and the typical deceptive logorrhea for the right. They are "Guns and
> Gawd" people only. They would scrap the establishment clause in a
> second if they could............jim
I agree that such confusion exists, though it is NOT merely social conservatives who want that confusion to be accepted as the way things are. A lot of self-proclaimed feminists want to make feminism to be merely their kind of feminism -- as opposed to a multifaceted movement in which some individuals might even be opposed to others. Also, many in the Left want collectivist feminism or radical feminism to be seen as true feminism, while individualist or libertarian feminism are portrayed are sell out feminism.
(BTW, some of you might want to check out the Randian-Feminism list. See http://www.uio.no/~thomas/lists/randian-feminism.html for details on it.)
This all works together as one system because on a lot of basic assumption social conservatives, radical feminists, and Leftism agree. One of these is a collectivist view of humanity. All of these ideologies tend to put individuals into categories and like to work with them that way. Another is statism. Most social conservatives want to shove their moral agenda down everyone's throats in the same way that most radical feminists want special treatment, subsidies, and men to be punished (which amounts to using the government to bludgeon other people), and the Left (with few exceptions) wants to use governmental power to enforce whatever is in currency as social justice at the moment.
Minor quibble: I would not paint Rush Limbaugh as part of the "Guns and Gawd" crowd because he is not necessarily pro-gun rights. I also believe that social conservatives, on the whole, are not pro-gun rights. At best, they either see gun rights as a traditionalist issue -- they're for guns because they've always been for them -- or, more pragmatically, because they do not yet control the government. When and if they do, I bet they will turn anti-gun because they won't want anyone else to have an armed means to resist their power.
Cheers!
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/