Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It is easy to find data confirming one's preexisting inclinations.

And since we're all in the same boat...

Which is absurd. One cannot dismiss the unique properties of an apple and insist that it behave as if it were an orange, which is what feminism seems to demand.

And what essential properties would that be? For myself, I've tried to cast off the patriarchal influences in my character. I'm still a work in progress, but it would be a hell of a lot easier in a society that DIDN'T CONSTANTLY REINFORCE me being a lecherous dickhead.

And if a better model comes along, I'll incorporate it into my worldview. Until then, I'll stick with what has the greatest explanatory value, given my life experience and the limits of my reason.

Fair enough, but a healthy dose of skepticism goes a long way I think.

Anarchism has no program -- can't have a program, really. You will not see an anarchist working through the state to impose a singular vision of the perfect world from above. Feminists do this sort of thing, because they are of the same species as other radical totalitarians who believe human beings can be forced to be good.

I don't appreciate this kind of equation. There are plenty of libertarian feminists, plenty of radical libertarian feminists, etc. Even the main radical feminist current was a bottom-up approach. (It's true that they did try to use the State to force some their views, most notably pornography, and while this became the most visible means of action, their main strategy was that of changing the culture.)

Fair enough. Still, you're not going to extirpate aggression from the human organism by talking circles round it.

Hardy-har-har.

Don't be facetious. You know very well Spencer was one of the chief proponents of social Darwinism in the 19th century.

No I don't. Not at least in the common, vulgar sense.

And as I understand them, the naturalistic fallacy and is-ought problem make a hash of all ethical judgments, since they cannot be tied to real-world circumstances. The good is what it is, which is an unhelpful tautology, since no one can ever hope to define the good except as a nebulous abstraction. If you can't reference the natural world when developing an ethic for living in that world, then you are left either with some supernatural authority or nihilism, so far as I can tell.

I think Hume's is-ought gap can be leaped through assertoric imperatives. G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy, if I recall correctly, is primarily addressed toward the oft-mentioned Herbert Spencer and the utilitarians; Moore embraces a consequentialist non-naturalism as a result, not divine command theory nor nihilism. Regardless, I think Moore's construction of the word 'natural' does not have a wide enough scope to encompass other ethical theories. I think Kant and Aristotle come out unscathed.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Could you please provide more info about who these guys are, what their qualifications are, and what they actually said? Something other than wikipedia, I mean, which as far as I'm concerned is unreliable.



I don't think so.

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". (It wasn't Darwin, as is commonly believed, though he did incorporate it into later editions of On the Origin of Species.) He was a proponent of social Darwinism during the 19th century, which was a body of sociopolitical thought that essentially recapitulated Calvin's notion of unconditional election in secular, scientific terms. The rich were prosperous because of their inherent fitness, while the poor deserved their misery and should not be helped, since charity could only have a dysgenic effect on the race. Social Darwinism segued perfectly with the needs of industrial capitalism during the Gilded Age, so it was snatched up by characters like Andrew Carnegie to justify the rapaciousness of the robber barons and the deplorable treatment of factory labor.

Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist living and writing at roughly the same time as Spencer. He wrote a book entitled Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, in which he argued that evolution was a force as much (if not more than) for the promotion of cooperation among organisms as competition between them.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

And it is the man's body that is usurped to pay for the unwanted child. You cannot blithely dismiss this fundamental inequity. Even if you choose to ignore it, other men will not, and they will mount an ever-growing resistance as the double-standard ruins more and more lives. Placing your hands on your ears and shouting "La la la, I'm not listening!" will not suffice to quiet the critics.

And those whining men should have had the sense to keep in their pants or use a condom, I have no sympathy for them, they acted stupid and have to suffer the consequences.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

And what essential properties would that be? For myself, I've tried to cast off the patriarchal influences in my character. I'm still a work in progress, but it would be a hell of a lot easier in a society that DIDN'T CONSTANTLY REINFORCE me being a lecherous dickhead.

Quoted For Truth!

Originally Posted by Matt1989

I think Hume's is-ought gap can be leaped through assertoric imperatives. G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy, if I recall correctly, is primarily addressed toward the oft-mentioned Herbert Spencer and the utilitarians; Moore embraces a consequentialist non-naturalism as a result, not divine command theory nor nihilism. Regardless, I think Moore's construction of the word 'natural' does not have a wide enough scope to encompass other ethical theories. I think Kant and Aristotle come out unscathed.

I have wandered towards Virtue Ethics as of late, and in general I think formalized moral systems that claim to be objective are merely rationalizations of irrational sentiments.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

No I don't. Not at least in the common, vulgar sense.

It seems. then, that the man was lax in defending his theories from contemporaries who would seek to co-opt them for their own purposes. He is not, therefore, completely innocent of the charges leveled against him by historians. Since Gutenberg, the potential for the ideas of great thinkers to be hijacked by opportunists has steadily increased with the capacity for mass circulation. This demands a measure of vigilance on the part of the author, which Spencer apparently failed to exercise, if his current reputation is any indication. Granted, there's nothing the man could do once he's dead to defend his character, but social Darwinism took root in the West in his lifetime. It was not a posthumous development.

I think Hume's is-ought gap can be leaped through assertoric imperatives. G.E. Moore's naturalistic fallacy, if I recall correctly, is primarily addressed toward the oft-mentioned Herbert Spencer and the utilitarians; Moore embraces a consequentialist non-naturalism as a result, not divine command theory nor nihilism. Regardless, I think Moore's construction of the word 'natural' does not have a wide enough scope to encompass other ethical theories. I think Kant and Aristotle come out unscathed.

I don't see how any of these models can have any authority, however. My gut reaction is that it's all endlessly circular mentation, without much practical utility. Consequentialism, moreover, seems to lend itself to banal evil of the "thousand little Eichmanns" variety. If you can rationalize attrocity on the grounds that it secures a greater good, there's no reason not to open the valves on the Zyklon B canisters.

Originally Posted by The Rani

It's more likely that you don't understand evolutionary psychology. Moreover, you really think that you are able to determine "the complex interaction between genetics and environment" better than they are?

Do all kids these days consider themselves an expert on every subject just because they know how to use the internet???!!!

What I meant was that many of these Evolutionary Psychologists only seem to pay lip service to "the complex interaction between genetics and environment" in response to critics while they continue with "the gender dynamics of our ancestors resembled those of 50s America" bad science.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Wow. What a sensitive guy you are.

WOW! What an annoying troll you are.

Originally Posted by Odin

And those whining men should have had the sense to keep in their pants or use a condom, I have no sympathy for them, they acted stupid and have to suffer the consequences.

Whereas the women do not. They can be as stupid as they like, since someone else will be called upon to pick up the tab. Odin, you are no different in kind from the pro-lifer who repeats endlessly the mantra "Life begins at conception."

Originally Posted by The Rani

Christianity has been used to oppress a lot more people than Social Darwinism has. Doesn't mean that it's worthless, or should be eradicated. All ideas are Good. What you do with them can be Bad.

Sure. But then there is the complementary question: Good for whom?

Whenever I assess an idea, I first ask myself "Whom does it benefit that I believe this?" If the initial answer does not include "me and mine", then I elevate the level of skepticism, since that usually suggests I'm being sold a bill of goods.

Originally Posted by Odin

I have wandered towards Virtue Ethics as of late, and in general I think formalized moral systems that claim to be objective are merely rationalizations of irrational sentiments.

I concur. I can't accept the premises of either consequentialism or deontology, which has led me to virtue ethics by default. Morality as set of habitual attitudes strikes me as far simpler and more effortless (in the Taoist wuwei sense) than complex moral calculations or the rote application of a long list of ethical injunctions.

Originally Posted by Odin

What I meant was that many of these Evolutionary Psychologists only seem to pay lip service to "the complex interaction between genetics and environment" in response to critics while they continue with "the gender dynamics of our ancestors resembled those of 50s America" bad science.

Actually, it's more like the gender dynamics of our ancestors resembled those of Australian aborigines or Khoisan of the Kalahari Desert, a point on which the evolutionary scientists and the physical anthropologists are in pretty close agreement.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Whereas the women do not. They can be as stupid as they like, since someone else will be called upon to pick up the tab. Odin, you are no different in kind from the pro-lifer who repeats endlessly the mantra "Life begins at conception."

Listen, I DO think the way child support works needs to be reformed, the current system is a relic of when most women were housewives and men made all the family's money. That said, if the guy can afford to make child support support payments he has the responsibility to do so. Your attitude really gives reality to the cliche that "if men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrement".

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Actually, it's more like the gender dynamics of our ancestors resembled those of Australian aborigines or Khoisan of the Kalahari Desert, a point on which the evolutionary scientists and the physical anthropologists are in pretty close agreement.

And the gender dynamics of those two groups are a bit different. The Australian Aboriginal societies seem to be significantly more misogynistic then the Bushmen. The only things I know of that can be seen as universals are:

Serial Monogamy
Men do most of the hunting

Most if not all primitive societies have a division of labor between men and women but besides hunting and warfare which gender has which jobs varies greatly from society to society, there is no basis anthropologically, therefore, for many "men are better at this and women are better at that" arguments. Thus the reference above to the Japanese thinking that women are better at math than men.

I want to reiterate that I'm not really advocating any particular cultural arrangement on purely biological grounds. I am bringing to people's attention the fact that biology almost invariably lags culture, which leads to insoluble tensions whenever cultural injunctions emerge that are at odds with human ontogeny. Social authorities must apply continuous pressure to enforce these injunctions, since the natural human inclination is to rebel against them. If the pressure is removed, society will revert to a state that is more in line with human ontogeny. The amount of energy a society can muster to enforce what are essentially inhuman standards of behavior is finite, and in moments of crisis, every single standard becomes subject to a cost-benefit analysis. In such an analysis, the easiest rules to maintain will be selected first for retention, down the line until the store of (diminished, hence the crisis) societal energy is fully allocated. The leftovers will be discarded. No cultural injunctions chaff more against the instincts of the human organism than those concerning reproduction. They are therefore among the hardest and most expensive to maintain. I predict, therefore, that in this 4T, the current artificial imbalance between men's and women's reproductive rights will be corrected by default, simply because the government will not possess the energy to solve its other, more pressing problems and mediate the ballooning confrontation between feminism and masculism. The result will probably be a complete withdrawal of government from the business of licensing marriage and regulating parenthood, which will give way to contractual partnerships of varying length and detail, infringements of which will be handled like any other breach of contract, in a civil court. The only other solution I can see is a Brave New World scenario in which the birthing and raising of children essentially becomes a state enterprise, subject to technocratic management, in which the concept of parenthood is effectively eradicated. (This is not so far-fetched. Huxley rightly understood that the logic of finance capitalism and consumerism necessarily leads to the maximal atomization of society, with all sentimental ties dissolved in order to create the perfectly narcissistic Last Man.) This implies a much stronger centralized state (not to mention significant technical advancements in ectogenesis) than is likely to emerge from the 4T, however, so I don't count it as particularly likely.

Originally Posted by Odin

Listen, I DO think the way child support works needs to be reformed, the current system is a relic of when most women were housewives and men made all the family's money. That said, if the guy can afford to make child support support payments he has the responsibility to do so. Your attitude really gives reality to the cliche that "if men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrement".

*shrug* That is probably true. I consider the pro-life argument to be absurd. If men were biologically capable of becoming pregnant, I would want them to enjoy the same access to abortion as women. If you meant this remark in a pejorative sense, I'm afraid if missed the mark.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So anyway, can you provide a direct quote of this?

Unfortunately, that could take hours of digging. This secondary source should do.

And yeah, Arkham is right, there have been a LOT of changes in the field since way back then.

Definitely. Social Darwinism is a piss-poor reason to reject sociobiology.

I would suggest, however, that cultural differences impact brain development and thus the expression of human biology. In that case the notion of "default state" is meaningless, just as the mythical Hobbesian "state of nature" is meaningless, since is no person is without a wider bio-psycho-social context influencing brain development. Brains have been shown to have greater plasticity then previously assumed, and I will speculate that what memes a individual takes up over the course of his or her life, especially his or her childhood, will have an impact on the brain. This is why people undergo cognitive behavioral therapy for mental illnesses, it aims to modify the wiring of a brain troubled by noxious memes that are bad for one's mental health, and it is also why Buddhists, among others, practice meditation.

This is why, IMO, Polygamy and hierarchical behavior typical for other ape species appeared in humans as societies advanced beyond the hunter-gather condition, it was the CULTURAL conditions imposed by a hunter-gather lifestyle that maintained the egalitarian structure of those societies and the serial monogamy of the gender dynamics in those societies. Which is why I am wary of using hunter-gathers as a representation of human behavior in the "state of nature", they are as influenced by culture as we are.

Originally Posted by Odin

And those whining men should have had the sense to keep in their pants or use a condom, I have no sympathy for them, they acted stupid and have to suffer the consequences.

Additionally, from the youtube video I linked to upthread:

"Reproductive rights: men have none. Now understand this clearly, because it is very important that you understand the full implications of this. Men have no reproductive rights, which means what? If you get a woman pregnant, she can do whatever she likes with that pregnancy. You can be forced into fatherhood against your will, or a child you want can be aborted. And you have no say in the matter either way. Now those who ignore the needs and rights of men will tell you that men do have reproductive rights. They say a man can abstain from sex, or wear a condom. But abstaining is not a reproductive right: it's what everyone's doing when they're not having sex. Wearing a condom is not a reproductive right, it's merely a contraceptive, a preventative measure against pregnancy, just like the pill. Reproductive rights only come into play when there's an actual pregnancy. In the States, Roe vs. Wade established that it's a woman's right to choose what happens with the pregnancy. Now tell me, what legal precedent established that wearing a condom protected a man's right not to have fatherhood imposed on him against his will? If there were a law which said wearing a condom protected men from the legal consequences of pregnancy, then wearing a condom would be a reproductive right. But there is no such law, which means, condom or not, if the woman falls pregnant, you will be forced to pay child support if she has the baby. Ergo, men have no reproductive rights...."

Also, abstinence is no protection. Or even the incorrect configuration of one's gonads. There have been cases in which new mothers have picked the names of putative fathers out of phone books, including a few in which women with unisex names were erroneously identified. The burden and costs of disestablishing paternity are born entirely by the putative father, and in most states there is a very limited time-frame in which this can occur, before a default judgment is filed. If you can't afford a lawyer when the papers arrive in the mail -- or if you never receive the papers because they were sent to the wrong address -- you're SOL. This is especially surreal when the falsely identified women must present in order to disestablish paternity, and are still required to make nonrecoverable support payments until such time as the case is decided.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Herbert Spencer coined the phrase "survival of the fittest". (It wasn't Darwin, as is commonly believed, though he did incorporate it into later editions of On the Origin of Species.) He was a proponent of social Darwinism during the 19th century, which was a body of sociopolitical thought that essentially recapitulated Calvin's notion of unconditional election in secular, scientific terms. The rich were prosperous because of their inherent fitness, while the poor deserved their misery and should not be helped, since charity could only have a dysgenic effect on the race. Social Darwinism segued perfectly with the needs of industrial capitalism during the Gilded Age, so it was snatched up by characters like Andrew Carnegie to justify the rapaciousness of the robber barons and the deplorable treatment of factory labor.

Kropotkin was a Russian anarchist living and writing at roughly the same time as Spencer. He wrote a book entitled Mutual Aid: A Factor in Evolution, in which he argued that evolution was a force as much (if not more than) for the promotion of cooperation among organisms as competition between them.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

It seems. then, that the man was lax in defending his theories from contemporaries who would seek to co-opt them for their own purposes. He is not, therefore, completely innocent of the charges leveled against him by historians. Since Gutenberg, the potential for the ideas of great thinkers to be hijacked by opportunists has steadily increased with the capacity for mass circulation. This demands a measure of vigilance on the part of the author, which Spencer apparently failed to exercise, if his current reputation is any indication. Granted, there's nothing the man could do once he's dead to defend his character, but social Darwinism took root in the West in his lifetime. It was not a posthumous development.

As stated, and supported by Spencer's libertarian credentials, I don't think he was a social Darwinist by what we usually mean by the term. He wasn't even a Darwinist, but a Lamarckian. As to whether he deserves blame for his defamation, I can say only maybe. He was an old sick man by this time who was losing friends and actual influence well before the information age.

I do admire Spencer and Kropotkin, and the latter's work in Mutual Aid was no minor influence on my thought. Nevertheless, I think there are significant flaws in their respective canons.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

Why should they? One what basis do you make this statement? You can't reference the science; that would lead to a fallacy, as you put it. Where do your ethics come from?

Originally Posted by Odin

I have wandered towards Virtue Ethics as of late, and in general I think formalized moral systems that claim to be objective are merely rationalizations of irrational sentiments.

That makes a trio, and well said Odin. I think that one can make reference to empirics without necessarily committing a fallacy (i.e. I know this is bad because having lived, and using practical reason, I can tell that it does not further my aims qua human being), but many theories fail this test.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

I don't see how any of these models can have any authority, however. My gut reaction is that it's all endlessly circular mentation, without much practical utility. Consequentialism, moreover, seems to lend itself to banal evil of the "thousand little Eichmanns" variety. If you can rationalize attrocity on the grounds that it secures a greater good, there's no reason not to open the valves on the Zyklon B canisters.

Mhmmm. It's good for debunking; is that practical utility? After all, isn't it obvious that the hedonists commit a fallacy by asserting that 'pleasure is equivalent to good,' and that this fallacy has to do with taking an abstract notion and equating it to a temporary psychological or physical state? You might argue against the idea that the good is indefinable, but that doesn't necessarily make the doctrine of hedonism commit any less of a fallacy.

Moore's consequentialism would seem to suggest that the state of affairs you are describing would not be good. Maybe that's a good reason not to be a consequentialist though...

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

I want to reiterate that I'm not really advocating any particular cultural arrangement on purely biological grounds. I am bringing to people's attention the fact that biology almost invariably lags culture, which leads to insoluble tensions whenever cultural injunctions emerge that are at odds with human ontogeny. Social authorities must apply continuous pressure to enforce these injunctions, since the natural human inclination is to rebel against them. If the pressure is removed, society will revert to a state that is more in line with human ontogeny.

Thank you for this clarification of your views. If I understand you correctly, your objection to feminism then, is that it is against human ontogeny, and this tension leads to undesirable states of affairs -- thus indicating that there is something unjust about feminism. But I have to side with Odin on this one: humans do not have a specific essential nature that can be adequately defined through functional evolution. As human beings, we have the emergent property of rationality; it allows us to mold own our destiny more than any other living creature on this planet. Surely adopting a feminist ethos is not a stretch too great for humans to accomodate.

Originally Posted by Matt1989

As stated, and supported by Spencer's libertarian credentials, I don't think he was a social Darwinist by what we usually mean by the term. He wasn't even a Darwinist, but a Lamarckian. As to whether he deserves blame for his defamation, I can say only maybe. He was an old sick man by this time who was losing friends and actual influence well before the information age.

Unfortunate, that. History is written by the victors, and it looks like he came out on the losing side of some "ancient" debate that is no longer really relevant to most people. Not having had the opportunity to churn through his entire corpus, I can only go by what is written about him in encyclopedic texts, which is not very flattering.

I do admire Spencer and Kropotkin, and the latter's work in Mutual Aid was no minor influence on my thought. Nevertheless, I think there are significant flaws in their respective canons.

I think Kropotkin was a bit dodgy in places, but I appreciate the overall thrust of his work. He didn't have the benefit of a lot of 20th-century developments in economics and technics, which have informed modern-day mutualists like Kevin Carson.

Mhmmm. It's good for debunking; is that practical utility? After all, isn't it obvious that the hedonists commit a fallacy by asserting that 'pleasure is equivalent to good,' and that this fallacy has to do with taking an abstract notion and equating it to a temporary psychological or physical state? You might argue against the idea that the good is indefinable, but that doesn't necessarily make the doctrine of hedonism commit any less of a fallacy.

Well, see, consequentialism in its broadest sense doesn't have to be based on a pleasure-pain calculus. It can take any criterion as its metric. If your definition of the good is the advancement of Aryan racial purity, then the massacring of Jews is simply a form of hygiene, like brushing one's teeth in order to remove unsightly plaque. I think a lot of the democides of the 20th century were born in consequentialist thinking.

Thank you for this clarification of your views. If I understand you correctly, your objection to feminism then, is that it is against human ontogeny, and this tension leads to undesirable states of affairs -- thus indicating that there is something unjust about feminism. But I have to side with Odin on this one: humans do not have a specific essential nature that can be adequately defined through functional evolution. As human beings, we have the emergent property of rationality; it allows us to mold own our destiny more than any other living creature on this planet. Surely adopting a feminist ethos is not a stretch too great for humans to accomodate.

Time will tell. So far, feminism seems to have created as much dysfunction as it reputedly solved, so at the very best it can be considered a wash. I don't think the Men's Rights Movement is going fade into the background, however. I've seen first-hand the human wreckage that results when the family courts fix their gaze on (lower-class) males in my time working with the homeless. And this was before the current recession. The number of men being rendered destitute and homeless by the family courts must have exploded in the last 18 months. I live in a fairly rural area now, and I have seen men wandering the back roads whom I am certain are homeless from their raggedy clothes and overstuffed rucksacks, and I know that many of them are probably in arrears on child support payments they have no hope whatsoever of servicing in the current economic climate. If they are stopped by the authorities, for whatever reason, these men will be going to jail, where the arrearages will continue to accumulate. They are trapped by forces beyond their control. Such men can have no faith or investment in a system that systematically oppresses them, and they serve as object lessons to other, more fortunate men who are terrified of winding up in similar circumstances. That is not a healthy foundation for equitable relations between the sexes.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

But it is the man's body that is subjected to 18+ years of labor in support of a child he did not want, while the woman is only inconvenienced by pregnancy for 9 months -- a condition that she can terminate at will.

Huh? The woman is required to provide support for 18 years too. So where do you get this 24:1 ratio?

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

And it is the man's body that is usurped to pay for the unwanted child. You cannot blithely dismiss this fundamental inequity. Even if you choose to ignore it, other men will not, and they will mount an ever-growing resistance as the double-standard ruins more and more lives. Placing your hands on your ears and shouting "La la la, I'm not listening!" will not suffice to quiet the critics.

I think you are exagerating here. You express a concern about a man getting stuck with a child he doesn't want. Women get stuck too. The decision point is early in the process for both people. Both have a choice not to produce a child in the first place either by refraining from sex or using effective birth control. If the couple doesn't do this, the assumption is the pregancy was wanted.

Since the woman is the one who gets pregnant, she has a brief window during which she can terminate the preganancy before the options for termination shut down in many states. In some states there is also a very brief period right after birth when the mother can terminate her parental rights. After that neither parent can do so and both are responsible for child support until age 18.

Obviously men cannot have an abortion because they don't get pregnant. So I see no unfairness here. The only unfairness I can see is the brief window after birth. The women can surrender her parental rights, while the man can do so only if the woman does so first.

After this brief period both parents are in the same boat, neither can surrender their rights. The father is entitled to support from the government or the mother if he is the one raising the child.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

If they are stopped by the authorities, for whatever reason, these men will be going to jail, where the arrearages will continue to accumulate.

I doubt it. Local communities cannot afford to house the homeless in jail. The baby daddies I know of live with a woman until she throws him out, often producing a baby in the process Then they repeat the process with another woman until they run out of the options.

What you describe isn't male versus female issue. It's a poor person's issue. These homeless men aren't raising their kids adequating. And its likely the mother isn't either.

The cause of the problem is poor choices in youth. The consequences are harsh for everyone involved, particularly the children, because of our nation's fetish for personal liberty and personal repsonsibility. If you don't show personal reponsibility then by God we'll make damn sure your kids pay the price. And then by George we will have a whole new generation who is going to go out and do the same thing all over again.

Originally Posted by Andy '85

I find it interesting that some on the left would be more than happy to make the conservative society uncomfortable when confronting long-held notions (Young Earth, Creationism) with new evidence (evolution, radiometric dating), but at the same time, when something like evolutionary psychology, and human biodiversity starts chipping away at notions such as the idea human differences are nothing but social constructs (one of the pillars of political correctness), suddenly the science becomes pernicious.

Well, which of those "on the left" would you be referring to? (For the record, I really hate this "some would" business no matter who's using it)

I've never advocated that human differences are NOTHING BUT social constructs, and I don't think that's what Matt believes, either.

Originally Posted by Arkham '80

No. Not period. Because the negation of choice is not a choice. Abstinence is, to paraphrase this excellent webcast, the default state in which every human being finds himself when he is not having sex. It is not a reproductive option. Women are not subject to any limits on their reproductive options. From the moment of conception, they hold all the cards, on the bogus rationale that the temporary physical inconvenience of pregnancy somehow trumps all other considerations. But it is the man's body that is subjected to 18+ years of labor in support of a child he did not want, while the woman is only inconvenienced by pregnancy for 9 months -- a condition that she can terminate at will. That is a 24:1 ratio, at minimum. There is no reasonable comparison between a pregnancy voluntarily entered into and a third of a lifetime or more of state-imposed indenture.

What do you propose as a remedy, Arkham?