Another Weasel Apology

Bartholomew said:

Males in the US are still forcibly subjected to genital mutilation at birth, a problem that feminists, if actually working for sexual equality, should tackle. Do they?

Click to expand...

*refers to Richard's post*

There's also room to combat the strange prejudices that follow men who want to teach very young children. The phrase "Men's Rights" does not have to be dirty or ironic.

Click to expand...

No, it doesn't have to be, it just almost always is. Much of men's rights movements are a reaction against a loss of privilege. But men do have reasons for complaint - for example, custody issues, which economically negatively impact women btw so it's not all that cut and dried - true men's rights issues are not at odds with feminism at all.

/opinion

I'm pretty sure that more women graduate from college due to the fact that they're socialized quite early on to sit down and STFU, which are behaviors that suit college well, not because the college entrance system is gamed against men.

/opinion

It will often be strange, however, just because, if men were to lose a justified right in the US, women would be likely to lose it in simultaneity. The reverse doesn't like to hold true.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Men yammering on about men's rights reminds me an awful lot of white people yammering on about how they've supposedly been hurt by affirmative action.

ETA: And sexism hurts men, too. Definitely. Feminism should not be the enemy of men.

ETA2: Sorry for the major tangent, but this story is yet another example of how socially enforced gender roles do hurt men.

rugcat said:

Perhaps you could clarify.

Click to expand...

I already did.

Do you believe the incident never happened? Or that the subject was not detained? Or that his hair was never cut? Or that holding someone down and cutting their hair is just a "prank" and not actually a crime at all?

Click to expand...

I don't "believe" any of these things, for I don't actually know.

As what is or is not a crime, I'd guess people's views in that regard are colored by their own experiences. If you recall, you opined on the JFK's monstrous cruelty thread--rightly, imo--that there were different "social dynamics" then (close to the same time period, oddly enough). "Mild disapproval" for what today might be quite a serious crime.

I'd prefer absolute standards, of course. But I rarely get my way...

robeiae said:

me.I'd prefer absolute standards, of course. But I rarely get my way...

Click to expand...

I think violent attacks attacks are pretty much absolute, as opposed to say, chauvinistic attitudes toward women.

Unless you want to go back to Roman times, of course.

Bartholomew said:

Males in the US are still forcibly subjected to genital mutilation at birth, a problem that feminists, if actually working for sexual equality, should tackle. Do they?

Click to expand...

I certainly do, but I try to avoid bringing it up here because it always turns out ugly.

/potential circ derail

rugcat said:

The exact wording varies from state to state.

In Utah, which I'm most familiar with, having studied the code, the charge of assault includes both the threat of violence and the act itself.



http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE76/htm/76_05_010200.htm

And yes, the only question involves the phrase "bodily harm." But courts have ruled that it can mean a myriad of things apart from the obvious like punching someone in the face.

The incident as described clearly has precendent qualifying it as an assault. It could also qualify as unlawful detention.

But the exact charge is nit-picking. It is a misdemeanor criminal act for which jail time could be imposed.

Perhaps you could clarify.

Do you believe the incident never happened? Or that the subject was not detained? Or that his hair was never cut? Or that holding someone down and cutting their hair is just a "prank" and not actually a crime at all?

Click to expand...

Such an action may very well be a prank. That doesn't mean it is not also a crime. If the pranksters didn't bother to check ahead of time that their little jokey-poo was safely legal, then those pranksters would be idiots as well as assholes. Throw the book at them, say I. How else are they going to learn?

The worst thing about the incident, IMO, is that the boy was humiliated. Even if he'd suffered no pain from the hair-cutting--and hair grows back, after all--this boy had to go to school the next day, and the next, and the next, with the equivalent of a "scarlet letter" for not being what the "majority" said he should be.

The apology was lame, of course, but I wouldn't think much of the whole thing, except for the current evidence that Romney is still trying to fit human beings into his box of what human beings should be--from their hairstyles to their sex lives.

POO on you Romney.

RichardGarfinkle said:

There are people who object to infant male circumcision. Some of them take it seriously and object on the principle that no one should have any such elective procedure performed without consent (which a baby can't do).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision_controversies

It doesn't have any of the horrors of female genital mutilation but some of the arguments (religion, tradition etc) are similar.

Note: I'm posting this out of information only, I'm not supporting them, and as I said, it doesn't compare to what women go through. But it needed to be mentioned for completeness sake.

Click to expand...

For the mutilations to be comparable on a purely physical level, a portion of the head of the penis, or the entire head of the penis would have to be removed. It's a decidedly unhappy thought.

Devil Ledbetter said:

I certainly do, [snip]

Click to expand...

And I appreciate that.

Yorkist said:

No, it doesn't have to be, it just almost always is. Much of men's rights movements are a reaction against a loss of privilege. But men do have reasons for complaint - for example, custody issues, which economically negatively impact women btw so it's not all that cut and dried - true men's rights issues are not at odds with feminism at all.

Click to expand...

Yep, though on a side note, I think for most people, coming to terms with a loss or lack of privilege is a matter of further education, rather than some black mark on a person's soul.

Bartholomew said:

Yep, though on a side note, I think for most people, coming to terms with a loss or lack of privilege is a matter of further education, rather than some black mark on a person's soul.

Click to expand...

True, though the misogyny that oftentimes results from privilege loss bothers me on a personal level. I see red about it. It's not something I can ever be entirely objective about.

But yeah, it also bothers me that men suffer for gender role identity enforcement - like this kid. It's just not quite as personal for me.

ETA: Thanks for not succumbing to the temptation for a circ' derail, guys.

I had long hair in the past. Not with the whole fashion or peer pressure.
I just learned that I had naturally curly hair and kept it that way.

Some guys tried to run me down to cut my hair. Now, I'm not one for violence, but I do know how to protect myself. I punched all three of them in the throat and walked away. The next day at school, they couldn't look at me. Nobody tried to mess with me after that.

I could just think how bad it would have been if I didn't protect myself. That's just wrong.

We can't credibly compare an Amish hair and beard cutting in this decade to a hair cutting event nearly five decades earlier. The enormous cultural, generational, and legal shift in mainstream America since 1965 makes it difficult enough to suggest the ramifications of the student haircutting event are comparable to if it were to happen today. The laws and attitudes weren't the same then as now.

Add in the religious aspect of the Amish event and it is pretty clear the only thing the two have in common is two insular groups looking for victims and the word hair.

Amish men typically grow beards in accordance with their religious practice, according to Donald Kraybill, an Amish scholar at Elizabethtown College. Amish women often do not cut their hair, Kraybill said.

Click to expand...

ETA: Ironically, student Romney's action then may have been more in touch with middle class America (in 1965) than Gov. Romney's response to the report was.

Again the critical matter here is less what happened then and more how Romney is treating it now. In that sense the two are comparable because both of them are being treated looked at here and now.

We feel no qualms about expressing outrage at a large number of offenses in the past that were deemed unimportant or everyday by those who did them then.

Click to expand...

As to the bolded section (my bold) completely agree. As to the rest? I'm going to try not to be part of the "we".

Williebee said:

As to the bolded section (my bold) completely agree. As to the rest? I'm going to try not to be part of the "we".

Click to expand...

On just this issue, or in general? Because there are lots of degrees of variation, and I would hope, perhaps selfishly, that you would not feel the same implied disapproval of, for example, a modern societal ("we"-based) condemnation of, say, the genocidal policies of the Indian Wars, or the Dredd Scott decision, or marital rape. After all, subjugating or wiping out indigenous people was once seen as a natural progression of time and civilization. The Dredd Scott ruling was considered ethical under the law by the highest jurists in the US. And marital rape didn't even exist as a crime in most people's minds as recently as the 1980s. So they are all examples of acts that were considered unimportant or everyday in earlier times but about which "we" express outrage now. Are "we" wrong? Or is it possible that when the "we" of society has an attitudinal shift like that, it's something worth considering?

If "we" is too broad and inclusive a pronoun, let's be careful that we are not too broad and inclusive in refusing to go along with the mainstream, eh?

To be clear, I don't think there is anything inherently negative in a "we"-based attitude shift away from acceptance of violent bullying. I think it is reasonable to expect someone who grew up in an age when violent bullying was more accepted to have matured along with the rest of "us" and, looking back on bullying he/she did in the past, to have some self-reflection and be able to say definitively when asked whether he/she regrets such actions now, in hindsight.

As you agree, the most important thing is how Romney is dealing now with this past incident. I maintain that the way he is dealing with it is showing us something about his character as it exists now, and it is not good.

Williebee said:

As to the bolded section (my bold) completely agree.

Click to expand...

I don't. Because I think any possible response Romney might have given--assuming he remembered the incident and it occurred more or less in the manner presented--would have been jumped on as flawed and lacking in some way.

If Romney had broken down and cried and said something like it was the low point in his life, his behavior was inexcusable, etc. he'd probably get heat for a phony and insincere apology. Indeed, he'd be hammered for waiting so long to fess up, as it were. The bulk of this thread would be no different whatsoever, imo, no matter what Romney said in response.

Still, the timing is still remarkable. Romney ran for the nomination four years ago. Why have the eyewitnesses been sitting on the story" Especially the one that has been "haunted" by it?

robeiae said:

Still, the timing is still remarkable. Romney ran for the nomination four years ago. Why have the eyewitnesses been sitting on the story" Especially the one that has been "haunted" by it?

Click to expand...

Clearly a democratic conspiracy. What other explanation could there be?

Or perhaps the fact that he's going to be the actual nominee with a realistic shot at the presidency has something to do with it.

Perhaps because it was obvious four years ago fairly early on that McCain, and not Romney, would win the Republican nomination? And now that he has, the possibility that he might actually become president is more real?

rugcat said:

Clearly a democratic conspiracy. What other explanation could there be?

Or perhaps the fact that he's going to be the actual nominee with a realistic shot at the presidency has something to do with it.

Click to expand...

The second suggests the former. What's your point?

robeiae said:

The second suggests the former. What's your point?

Click to expand...

My point is that you keep insisting that we don't really know if such an incident ever happened. Now you're intimating that there's something suspicious about the timing of the revelation, which presumably casts further doubt on its veracity..

When someone runs for president, "opposition research" digs around, trying to find negative information about the other candidate -- like an affair resulting in a child, for example. That's a staple of politics.

So what's your point? What does the timing have to do with anything factual?

I think it is reasonable to expect someone who grew up in an age when violent bullying was more accepted to have matured along with the rest of "us" and, looking back on bullying he/she did in the past, to have some self-reflection and be able to say definitively when asked whether he/she regrets such actions now, in hindsight.

Click to expand...

Indeed. There should be sorrow, regret, even shame. Those things are not "outrage." They are, imho, more useful and beneficial. They are a sign of growth and learning.

I'm not willing to be "outraged" over something that was not considered outrageous in the place and time it occurred in. If, after all the advances and education available since that time, that event was to occur today? That would be outrageous.

For example, after all this country might have learned from our history and struggle for civil rights, for RNC Chairman Priebus to go on Meet the Press this morning and endorse a "separate but equal" policy for U.S. citizens who happen to be gay?

DAVID GREGORY:

But do you believe that gays and lesbians in America deserve equal rights?

REINCE PRIEBUS:
I think they deserve equal rights in regard to, say, discrimination in the workplace, issues such as, as Mitt Romney has pointed out numerous times, hospital visitations. I mean I think that for the sake of dignity and respect, sure. But if you're defining marriage as a civil right, then no. I don't believe that people who are same sex should be able to married under our laws.

DAVID GREGORY:
I want to ask you one more on this. This past week, and I'll just read it here, you said here you believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. "We," meaning the Republicans, "believe that you can't federalize that kind of mandate." And yet the standard bearer of the party, Governor Romney, wants to do just that. He does want to federalize it. He supports a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

REINCE PRIEBUS:
Well, first of all, I agree with the governor.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the derail, but this is happening now, not more than two generations ago. I'm feeling a bit outraged.

Williebee said:

I'm not willing to be "outraged" over something that was not considered outrageous in the place and time it occurred in. If, after all the advances and education available since that time, that event was to occur today? That would be outrageous.

Click to expand...

I agree with this.

I personally don't think it was even necessarily primarily a gay bashing kind of thing -- at least not in the sense of hating gays. It was common to mock kids who acted "queer" without any real concept of what that meant -- it was more that they were "weird" and certainly deserved to be ostracized and made fun of.

So it's more, imo. about bullying by the alpha males of the school, the privileged, the "cool kids." And it shows an unpleasant side of Romney's personality, but not much more -- certainly nothing to disqualify him from holding office. Many unpleasant people have made effective leaders.

What most people are jumping on, and rightly, is his attempt to weasel out of it with "Gosh, I just don't remember anything like that." Again, not unusual for a politician, but Romney seems to embrace weaselness as a lifestyle choice. (Unless you believe he was born that way.)

To some extent it seems to be working, however. There are plenty of people who buy his explanation.

rugcat said:

My point is that you keep insisting that we don't really know if such an incident ever happened.

Click to expand...

Well no, I don't "keep insisting" that, at all. I'd allow the possibility, though. Mostly, I question the characterization of the event, particularly with regards to it being a clear-cut case of assault and battery.

Now you're intimating that there's something suspicious about the timing of the revelation, which presumably casts further doubt on its veracity..

Click to expand...

I "intimated" this previously. You're trying to spin things by saying this is a "new" angle for me. It's not.

When someone runs for president, "opposition research" digs around, trying to find negative information about the other candidate -- like an affair resulting in a child, for example. That's a staple of politics.

Click to expand...

I note that you seem disinclined to address the specifics I keep pointing to: the one guy's--Maxwell?--claims about this having "haunted" him, about how he wishes he could have apologized. Certainly, someone could have made hay with this before now. Certainly--if it was "haunting" him--he could have made it public before now. No?

So what's your point? What does the timing have to do with anything factual?

Click to expand...

Perhaps nothing, perhaps everything.

Wasn't there a report of someone losing (or turning over) John McCain's oppo-research on Romney? And that it was a couple hundred pages long? (eta: here - http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/the-book-on-mitt-romney-here-is-john-mccains-ent)

Could be something that came from that, I suppose, at least indirectly.

FWIW, I don't find the timing of this suspicious. Late October, then yeah, but not May. This is just... who Romney is, IMO.

robeiae said:

If Romney had broken down and cried and said something like it was the low point in his life, his behavior was inexcusable, etc. he'd probably get heat for a phony and insincere apology. Indeed, he'd be hammered for waiting so long to fess up, as it were. The bulk of this thread would be no different whatsoever, imo, no matter what Romney said in response.

Still, the timing is still remarkable. Romney ran for the nomination four years ago. Why have the eyewitnesses been sitting on the story" Especially the one that has been "haunted" by it?

Click to expand...

I, along with several others, have said (and reiterated) that we're less bothered by this happening way back when than we are with his shrugging it off now. Surely you don't mean to imply we're either lying or wrong about our own feelings on the matter?

Also, just because someone feels "haunted " by their own actions in high school doesn't mean they're going to make a public statement about it.

Williebee said:

Indeed. There should be sorrow, regret, even shame. Those things are not "outrage." They are, imho, more useful and beneficial. They are a sign of growth and learning.

I'm not willing to be "outraged" over something that was not considered outrageous in the place and time it occurred in. If, after all the advances and education available since that time, that event was to occur today? That would be outrageous.

For example, after all this country might have learned from our history and struggle for civil rights, for RNC Chairman Priebus to go on Meet the Press this morning and endorse a "separate but equal" policy for U.S. citizens who happen to be gay?


Sorry for the derail, but this is happening now, not more than two generations ago. I'm feeling a bit outraged.

Click to expand...

I think you might be splitting the wrong hair here.

The people in this conversation, to whom you have been responding, seem to me to have been expressing outrage over the idea of violent bullying in general.

In reference to Mitt Romney specifically, however, I have not seen outrage. I have instead seen disgust, dismissal, disbelief. Those are not outrage.

So if all you are hung up on is the word/concept of "outrage," perhaps another read-through for content as well as context might clear that problem up. (ETA: Unless the answer to my question was that, indeed, you don't think the Indian War, the Dredd Scott decision, or marital rape were outrageous until recently. If so, then, we should stop talking about, you and I.)

As for that Priebus worm, that hateful little bootlicker can kiss my ass, and so can the GOP/RNC and all their members and representatives who allow that individual to speak for them. Mitt Romney was happy to throw a perfectly good foreign policy adviser under the bus so he could present the desired facade of anti-gayness and be accepted by the religious right. Well, I'll happily adopt the same stance as my rightwing opponents and say that if the GOP wants to sell me that snake oil of theirs that they're not the party of bigotry and hate, they can start by replacing Reince Priebus as RNC Chairman.