[Vision2020] Why doesn't the Sisterhood learn to shoot?

[Don Kaag]

Ted:

"improvise, adapt, overcome".

Don Kaag

On Sunday, February 23, 2003, at 11:51 PM, Ted Moffett wrote:

>
> Don:
>
> While I can see where you are coming from and agree with much of what 
> you say, I think there is a contradiction in your worldview that you 
> do not recognize.  To be brief, you do believe that force can make a 
> person, or a government, conform to the agenda of the agency applying 
> the force, do you not?  As a former military man who recognizes the 
> necessity and efficacy of the use of force, I do not see how you can 
> but agree with what I just wrote.  Therefore, does it not follow that 
> no matter what forces a self determining mature adult person musters, 
> superior force can defeat them?  Therefore it also follows that a 
> women who faces a man willing to inflict enough pain and suffering can 
> bring such a women to defeat, and if said man is clever enough, he can 
> use methods that will bring the likelihood of his being stopped by 
> whomever, the police, friends of the women, social services etc. 
> rather unlikely.  Consider a man who threatens to kill the women's 
> children, or track the women down and kill her, wherever she goes, if 
> she turns the man into the police, even if he has to wait out a prison 
> term before he carries out his revenge.
>
> You may think these examples are extreme and rare, but they do exist 
> far more often than they should, and make my point, which is in 
> contradiction to your rather peculiar claim that women should not 
> "complain," because they are the ones turning themselves into victims. 
>  Get real, will you!  People can be victimized against their will when 
> they are very motivated to not let it happen.
>
> Let's launch a campaign of zero tolerance against brutal men
> who abuse women!  Then we would see men "complain" about women's 
> rights being out of control, which is the attitude many men take > today.
>
> I hear you complaining about women who are just trying to gain 
> attention to a very serious social problem.  What is the problem in 
> trying to raise the issue of violence against women and the damage it 
> does?  If you are serious in your statements and are not just 
> disputing various points for the sake of a good argument, etc. I 
> wonder why you are complaining about this?
>
> Your insistence on total self determination for adults does not fit 
> the facts of human life, psychology and biology.  No one is a self 
> made human being, and being an "adult" does not suddenly confer 
> special powers that create a being of total self control over the 
> forces in life.  Many people do not work to get what they have, it is 
> handed to them on a silver platter, and many other people work their 
> asses off and still get screwed over in one way or another.  To deny 
> this is to deny the facts.  No one is totally a controller of their 
> own destiny, and if this is the American dream, as you state, well, 
> the world is full of dreamers that are out of touch with reality.  Of 
> course I am not saying that self determintion and hard work are not 
> good values, but they are only part of the picture of human life.
>
> Ted
>
>
>
>
>> From: Don Kaag <dkaag@turbonet.com>
>> To: "Ted Moffett" <ted_moffett@hotmail.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] Why doesn't the Sisterhood learn to shoot?
>> Date: Tue, 18 Feb 2003 06:21:47 -0800
>>
>> Ted:
>>
>> No one can make you a victim if you do not accept victimhood.  We 
>> have laws in this country focused on that.  My point, which I am sure 
>> that you will never concede, is that once a person---male or 
>> female---reaches adulthood, they are, or ought to be, responsible for 
>> their own actions and controllers of their own destiny.  That's the 
>> American dream.
>>
>> It doesn't take physical strength, it doesn't take weapons or karate 
>> training.  All it takes (Granted, it is a big "all"...) is guts, hard 
>> work, and an unwillingness to be pushed around.  I am sick and tired 
>> of weenies whining about how the world, or the country, or their 
>> religion, or their significant other, push them around and don't 
>> recognize their "personness".
>>
>> If that's the truth, then they are responsible, as adults with a 
>> brain, to figure out how to stop it.  They've got a brain, they are 
>> citizens, with access to a plethora of community support agencies and 
>> volunteer groups, they need to get up off of their asses and do 
>> something about it, rather than complain about how they are 
>> mistreated.
>>
>> And as far as the consequences you have listed---divorce, ostracism, 
>> rejection by their religion---here's a hot flash for you.  TAANSTAFL. 
>>  (There is no such thing as a free lunch.)  In this world, you get 
>> what you work for and pay for.  That is the same for everyone.  If 
>> you want something badly, you must be willing to make the trade-offs 
>> to make it happen.
>>
>> Don Kaag
>>
>>
>> On Monday, February 17, 2003, at 09:05 PM, Ted Moffett wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Don, et. al.
>>>
>>> Speaking of those "blinders" ... did you take them off?  Or is this 
>>> more devils advocacy?
>>>
>>> So women who were raised in and married in a fundamentalist 
>>> Christian religion, are supposed to, according to you:
>>> "...organize, take over and change the rules.  Or change sects.  Or 
>>> start their own sect.  Or stop whining..."   Right!  They then face 
>>> possible divorce from their husbands, ostracism from the community 
>>> they have called home, and rejection from the God they sincerely 
>>> believe is the true God who has ordered through the divine word of 
>>> the Bible that women are to be obedient to their husbands.  Consider 
>>> the Southern Baptists, for an example of this approach.
>>>
>>> The options you outline are easy to advocate, difficult to practice.
>>>
>>> Also consider Catholicism.  You can forget the "take over and change 
>>> the rules" possibility.  When do you think the Pope will be a women? 
>>>  Or that women will be doing Mass?  Patriarchy at it's most 
>>> institutionalized!
>>>
>>> And it's easy to say but much more difficult to tell someone to 
>>> abandon their faith.
>>>
>>> As far as "whining" goes, many of these women DON'T WHINE.  But that 
>>> does NOT mean that men are not a factor in the social forces 
>>> involved in influencing these women to neglect competency in self 
>>> defense.  And that these same men do not tell these same women that 
>>> they will defend them, don't worry darling!
>>>
>>> This is all I was saying, stating what is a sociological fact, that 
>>> you seemed to overlook:  men actively are involved in influencing 
>>> many women to be helpless and dependent, and not only via the 
>>> influence of male dominated religion.  How many tough macho men just 
>>> dig defending their smaller weaker women friends, and tell them as 
>>> much?
>>>
>>> Are you going to assert that men to not engage in these behaviors?
>>>
>>> The flip side of this psychology involves the opposite behavior of 
>>> men defending "helpless" women, but often is oriented toward again 
>>> inducing helplessness and powerlessness: the shocking number of 
>>> women who face physical violence from men, and if they fight back 
>>> they just get it worse.  Are you aware of the rates of violent rape 
>>> and domestic violence against women in America?  And that much of 
>>> this violence does induce a psychology of helplessness?  Oh, I 
>>> forgot, women are all expected to be super women karate weapons 
>>> experts and kick ass, I take it?  The military solution is just what 
>>> America's families need to solve the problems of domestic violence 
>>> against women.  Give me a break...
>>>
>>> Ted
>>>
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