It appears that Barbie has found religion. After rebelling with Harley Davidson Barbie and bikini Barbie. There is even an S & M Barbie in all leather and fishnet stockings. Now, however, there is Burka Barbie.
Of course, this could be a surplus GI Joe in a Burka but the covered Barbie is on display with 500 other Barbies at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy. To complete the image of subjugation for feminists, Burka Barbie will be auctioned off to the highest bidder as part of the fundraiser by Sotheby’s.
For many, the doll teaches girls to accept an obnoxious practice of women covering themselves — a practice common in areas where girls as young as ten are routinely married off. Then again, many Muslims would likely argue that, if Mattel markets kinky Barbie, why shouldn’t it also make Barbies for conservative Islamic families?
Would do you think?
For the picture of Burka Barbie and full story, click here.
I think Barbie encourages a bad role model for little girls no matter her dress and/or supposed profession because of the ridiculous anorexic body image she promotes. That being said, Mattel should stick to toys and leave the religion at home unless they are willing to put out Jesus, Buddha and Mohamed action figures too (Now with Kung-fu Grip! Hasbro will let them use that slogan for a fee.). Otherwise they are just encouraging the fundamentalists. The same ones, who if they got their way, would kill the Mattel board for making Barbie ever appear liberated in any way in the first place.
It’s basic irony, but I appreciate it.
Lay down with dogs and you can get the fleas, Mattel.
How big a market is the Pakistani mountains anyway? Are the Taliban really that big a customer?
BIL–
Barbie’s anorexic–except for one part of her body. Otherwise, I agree with most everything you say.
BTW, this new Barbie is being produced by a part of the toy corporation you reference that’s called Mattaliban,Inc.
Elaine, that’s good.
So do they have a “Fetish” Barbie? A JAP Barbie, an Orthodox Barbie? A Burka Barbie Babe just leaves to much to the imagination for me.
Is there enough beer?
I loathe Barbie, Mattel and everything they stand for. However,
both my daughters, when they were little were into Barbie and unfortunately I had to occasionally engage in Barbie play with them, much as I’d push Lego’s. They’re women now and feminists to boot, so I guess that Barbie leaves no lasting effect. The idea of it though is repugnant and Mattel like all corporations will act amorally to earn profit.
Barbie is way too mavericky and perhaps is even going rogue.
Well, one must look on the sunny-side of the street in the world’s ever-darkening societies. At least Burka Barbies and the girls who emulate her will never get too much sun exposure skin cancer…
Seriously, we must remember the First Amendment and other rights. I would rather have freedoms of expression that shock some sensibilities than government censored Barbie styles.
Looking at that fishnet Barbie reminds me of what Dolly Parton said about the local ‘town tramp’. Paraphrastically, her comment went something like this, ‘I thought she was the prettiest thing I ever saw and I wanted to be/look just like her.’
Any girl should have that right, amongst many others…
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
Dorothy Parker (1893 – 1967), (attributed”
FFLEO,
Personally my favorite Parton quote is “”It takes a lot of money to look this cheap.”
As terrible as such a Barbie doll would be for the self-empowerment of little girls, there is a huge market for them. BuddaIsLaughing, conservative Islamic families live all over Western Europe and the United States. I regularly see women in Burkas walking behind their husbands at the grocery store here in Northern Virginia. If they want to purchase the doll for their children, I say we let them; there are far worse things which we should tackle first that parents do to their children than imposing conservative religious beliefs on them (and that has been happening for centuries!).
I have mixed feelings about this Burka thing as a father of an 18 year old female.
I don’t agree with covering up from head to toe but there is a case to be made for some modesty in how women and men dress. Especially teenagers.
I think a little differently now than I did when I was 25 and having a daughter.
I think some modesty helps young women by relieving them of the pressure of having to dress/look like a Calvin Klein ad.
I think Muslims take it too far but then we have taken it too far the other way. Isn’t there a middle ground between Burkas and Booty Shorts?
Certainly not mandated by Church or State but by common sense.
Christa–
I would say that the practices of some religions–for example, genital mutilation–are abhorrent and could pose a great threat to the physical and psychological well-being of many girls/young women. Teaching young girls that women are not equal to men, must be subservient to men, and are not deserving of many of the rights that males enjoy is, I think, a reason for concern–especially if it’s happening here in this country.
What is this…the 11th century? Maybe we should just turn the progress clock back by a millenium.
Ms. EM’ wrote:
“Teaching young girls that women are not equal to men, must be subservient to men, and are not deserving of many of the rights that males enjoy is, I think, a reason for concern–especially if it’s happening here in this country.”
_________________________________
Christianity has taught that for millennia. The main premise of which is that ‘god’ is a man/he. Of course, religions are all nonsense so we must not condemn one religion over the other–they are all equally contemptible.
FF LEO–
I’m not condeming one religion. You’ll see I didn’t reference any particular religion in my previous comment. I believe many religions profess the superiority of men–whether or not they require their women to dress in a particular fashion. That’s one reason I choose to live life as an ex-Catholic and a practicing agnostic.
I’m ok with burka barbie it’s S&M Barbie I’m kinda trippin on right now is she called that???
Besides the purity of her voice which sends chills through me, I love Dolly because she has never been defensive about her humble beginnings, nor tried to act the part of anything but herself. A true American treasure and very classy person.
I have to say I dig Dolly as well. I like people who are so clearly that comfortable in their own skin as a general rule. And she’s funny. Not Gracie Allen funny, but not without charm.
oh sure you guys just like her because she’s top heavy
I long for the day the human race can leave our primitive tribal associations behind us. Atheism (or at least Agnostic) for all!
In the meantime, as this would appear to be very depressing, I’m off to watch Life Of Brian again.
Since when has atheism lead us to anything but nothingness? Go “tribal” Barbie!
Buddha wrote:
“I like people who are so clearly that comfortable in their own skin…”
_________________________________
Say What? She is all plastic under that skin of hern’ from the head, way out front, and down to her toes.
She is a great, unique ’sanger’ but she was very insecure with her natural body. I wonder how many young, naturally flat-chested girls got implants because of Dolly’s gaudiness? Not a good legacy to leave…
Her agent once remarked something like, I have known Dolly since she was flat-chested.
Ms. Simone, I do not personally know of any men who like plastic sticking out of–top heavy or not–their girls. That includes roughnecks, roustabouts, soldiers…
lol
FFLEO,
I never said anything about natural. Just comfortable.
FF LEO–
I’ve sometimes wondered how Dolly Parton is able to remain upright. What do you suppose she uses for ballast? Ya think she might have lead in her shoes? I don’t think there are enough letters in the alphabet to label the cup size of her industrial-strength brassieres. Good Golly, Miss Dolly!
I’ll admit I find Dolly charming myself–but you’re definitely right about all the plastic surgery she’s had done to herself. Her face sure doesn’t look the same as it did years ago.
“For many, the doll teaches girls to accept an obnoxious practice of women covering themselves…”
There he goes again.
Who says it’s “obnoxious”? Modesty has been a standard of female apparel for many parts of the world for millennia.
Showing the body and dressing like a whore is a relatively recent Western phenomenon.
Now it’s the norm?
Dar–
You said: “Showing the body and dressing like a whore is a relatively recent Western phenomenon.”
Are you sure about that? There have been indigenous peoples in many parts of the world who have worn relatively little clothing because of the hot/steamy climates in which they lived. They didn’t think they were dressing like whores.
To Elaine M.,
First off, I wrote “…for many parts of the world for millennia.”
Secdonly, yes in tropical climate people dress in fewer clothes, but there the standards and ideas of body aesthetics and sexuality are different. Not the case in the modern West.
The women who dress like whores aren’t dressing like that because of the hot weather.
Dar–
I guess I didn’t make my point as clear as I should have. Whether a certain way of dressing is immodest or not may be determined by how a particular people perceive the human body. Some cultures/groups don’t see the human body as something lewd or lascivious. I’m all for personal modesty myself–but I think having to dress in an outfit that covers one’s body from head to foot to be extreme.
I live in an area that has four distinct seasons. In winter, I wear long plants and jerseys/sweaters with long sleeves to keep me warm–however, in summer, when it’s hot, I often wear shorts and sleeveless blouses/jerseys. You may consider the way I dress in summer to be immodest. I consider it practical.
You speak of women in the west who show their bodies and dress like whores. Do you consider it immodest and whore-like to have any part of one’s body exposed?
Elaine M.,
Humor is to the beholder and usually at anothers expense. However, I could not let this “slip” by so to speak. Were you reared in the Garden of Edin, per chance? You stated the following and I am having fun with the words and the ever so vivid imagination.
“I live in an area that has four distinct seasons. In winter, I wear long plants and jerseys”
Now would this be why they call the schools out east “Ivy League” as you are covered in Plants? Or is do you prefer another greenery such as a topiary?
Jersey is a British Isle. You would agree? If you agree and I am sure you do. Is there a particular season to obtain jersey as a covering? Do you special order it or pick it up yourself? Once you obtain jersey, do you prefer the good ole mud bath and a light rinse?
Thank you for a bright spot in the day.
AY–
Oh my! I really got a laugh out of that misspelling of mine. Thanks for calling my attention to it.
BTW, I wasn’t reared in the Garden of Eden–but in a state where Jesus’ image appears on the bottoms of irons. As for draping myself in greenery, I only do that in summer. In winter when there’s little foliage at the latitude where I live, I use pine cones to cover me “naughty bits.”
To Elaine M.,
“Some cultures/groups don’t see the human body as something lewd or lascivious.”
But that’s not the case in the West, where the female nody is seen as sexual. The women who dress in an exposing fashion do so precisely because the body is erotic and they wish to show off.
Are you going to tell me that women who wear thongs at beaches, or who wear mini-skirts, are doing so without being aware of their bodies?
I’ve no problem with people in the West having a certain standard of what is proper and not, but imposing this standard on others is unacceptable to me, as Mr.Turley would like.
Dar–
Are you saying that a woman’s body is not seen as sexual in Muslim countries? If it isn’t perceived as erotic–then why the need for women to cover their entire bodies?
It appears that you’d like to impose your standard of what is proper on others. You’re also quick to judge Western women by their manner of dress. Is that your only basis for determining whether a woman is a moral individual or not?
I wore a mini-skirt when I was young–and mini-skirts were the fashion. I’m not a whore, a skank, or a sleazebag! I’ve been faithfully married to the same many for four decades.
I’d much prefer to live in a culture where women enjoy equal rights and can decide how they will dress themselves–and not have a dress code and many types of restrictions imposed upon them by others.
To Elaine M.,
You obviously don’t read very well, as I’ve already written that I don’t care what standards one society adopts, but it is its imposition on others that I dislike.
And yes, in the Islamic World, the female body is sxual, as it is in most of the worl, as it is in the West.
The difference is that in most of the rest of the world there is a standard of morals, while in the modern West such morals are discarded and immoral behaviour proudly displayed.
The difference is that most women in the Middle East have no desire to whore their bodies to public eyes, unlike Western women for whome their bodies and showing off their bodies is the be all and end all of their existence.
Again, all fine and good, but don’t claim that to be the right and proper and universla standard that all must adapt.
Dar–
I can read just fine. You only respond selectively to my statements. You have one point to make–and don’t really care for a discussion. You’ve determined that: “The difference is that in most of the rest of the world there is a standard of morals, while in the modern West such morals are discarded and immoral behaviour proudly displayed.” You’ve come to a conclusion about many millions of people because of the way you’ve seen some women dress. You’re fixated on one thing. Most women in the West don’t go parading around in thong bikinis. Most of us dress in “modest” clothing and go off to work from Monday through Friday.
You are looking at only one aspect of morality. Just because you dress in a certain way–it doesn’t prove whether or not you’re a moral/virtuous person. I think we in the West could say that there are cultures in other parts of the world that lack morals–even though their women cover their bodies.
Is it moral to force young girls into marriages with older men? Are honor killings of women moral? Is it moral to treat women as subservient to men and allow them few freedoms?
All countries have moral people–as well as immoral people.
Elaine:
I think both you and Dar have valid points. As the father of an 18 year old girl/woman I can say that I wished she dressed a bit more modestly. She is more than the sum total of her body. And was not so caught up in the current culture of Brittney Spears Pop “Tart”
I think he is also right about lack of or diminution of morals in this country, 50 years ago the banking scandal would not have happened, it would have been considered bad form and President Eisenhower would never have received “favors” from an intern in the White House (yes I know about his affair during WWII).
However the things you mention are actually barbarism. So on the whole, while we may appear surficialy immoral, we are not barbarians and do adhere to ethical standards that promote individual freedoms. Which is more than I can say for most of the world.
Surficial immorality or a negation of human rights? I know where I want to live.
Byron–
Do you think your daughter is immoral?
In Victorian times in England, women covered their bodies from neck to foot–yet there were still plenty of sexual shenanigans going on behind closed doors. Stuff like that has happened anywhere and everywhere…and at all times throughout human history. You can even read about it in the Bible.
You wrote: “I think he (Dar) is also right about lack of or diminution of morals in this country, 50 years ago the banking scandal would not have happened, it would have been considered bad form and President Eisenhower would never have received “favors” from an intern in the White House (yes I know about his affair during WWII).”
The banking scandal wouldn’t have happened during Eisenhower’s presidency because of the Glass-Steagall Act, which, I beieve that enacted in 1933.
We’ve had presidents who owned slaves. Was that moral?
I daresay that what George W. Bush and Dick Cheney did to our country was far worse than Bill’s sexual indiscretion. Starting a pre-emptive war in which thousands and thousands of innocent people have been killed rates far higher on my scale of immorality! (And I blame Congress and the MSM for the war too.)
Correction: The banking scandal wouldn’t have happened during Eisenhower’s presidency because of the Glass-Steagall Act, which I beieve WAS enacted in 1933.
Second correction: The banking scandal wouldn’t have happened during Eisenhower’s presidency because of the Glass-Steagall Act, which I BELIEVE was enacted in 1933.
I’m having a bad morning typing my comments correctly.
Elaine,
That’s why Nal is here!
Elaine:
I don’t think she is immoral, I certainly hope not anyway.
As far as sex goes I am pretty much a libertinearian.
Slavery is/was an immoral institution. I would hazard a guess that most of the presidents that owned slaves probably thought the same way. Washington freed his upon his death, Jefferson freed 6-8 on his death.
GEORGE WASHINGTON (between 250-350 slaves)
- THOMAS JEFFERSON (about 200)
- JAMES MADISON (more than 100)
- JAMES MONROE (about 75)
- ANDREW JACKSON (fewer than 200)
- Martin Van Buren (one)
- William Henry Harrison (eleven)
- JOHN TYLER (about 70)
- JAMES POLK (about 25)
- ZACHARY TAYLOR (fewer than 150)
- Andrew Johnson (probably eight)
- Ulysses S. Grant (probably five)
The ones that bug me are Jefferson and Madison, they knew better and did nothing. Although it appears both Jefferson and Madison were very conflicted about slavery.
Again, apparently “bad morals” are caused by women. Wouldn’t you have to count men’s reaction to women’s dressing as part of bad morals? It’s just like the amazing virgin births in teens–no boys or men in sight, just those horrible girls getting themselves pregnant!
In part the worry about how women dress is indicative of our confusion between sex and violence. A sexual response is exactly opposite a violent response.
At this rate, we could always have men forced to wear straightjackets so they won’t act out violently towards women. Straightjackets would be exactly analogous to Burkas!
Jill:
Actually Burkas are straight jackets for men.
Byron,
BS–in the same countries where women are forced to wear those, womem and girls are raped and beaten in large numbers with impunity. I know you’re trying to make a joke but the cruelty of men towards women isn’t funny.
The garment itself is an act of cruelty. No one should have their access to the environment cut down to a covered slit near their eyes. There’s a reason, that tactic is used in torture. It disorients and makes people obedient to their captors.
Byron,
The bulk of Jefferson’s slaves were inherited via his wife’s family. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a mitigating circumstance. Unless you want to try to get rid of something your wife inherited from her family. In which case, I suggest wearing protection for your naughty bits.
BIL,
If Jefferson was afraid of his wife so much, why did he rape his slave and have children by her?
BIL–
Jefferson was a widower for many years. Jefferson’s wife died in 1782. Jefferson died in 1826. He didn’t need any protection from his wife for more than four decades.
I believe Jefferson had lots of debts and was in financial trouble for years. Maybe that’s another reason why he chose not to free any of his slaves until after he died. Weren’t many of his possessions sold after his death to pay off creditors?
Jill,
Fear has nothing to do with it. Marital dynamics are complicated is the point. You assume fear as a motive, but perhaps it was respect for his wive and/or her feelings that were his motivation. We cannot know his state of mind. What we can know is that in marriage one often has to do something one would rather not to the benefit of the other partner. That’s just our nature and the nature of lasting marriages. Like I said, not an excuse, a mitigation. There is a distinction. And a mitigation based on observable human dynamics, not a supposition about his state of mind. You have also made the assumption of rape, while perhaps valid as a technical point considering ownership, also presumes not only his intent and action, but Hemmings intent and action as well. Do you know for a fact she didn’t find in the interaction both voluntary and pleasing to her in some way? Theirs may have been true love. It could have been a brutal serial raping. We simply don’t know. But what we do know is that the whole dynamic would be impacted by the marital source of the slaves regardless of outcome. Your choice in language is imprecise and emotionally loaded, a reaction that while understandable nonetheless does not negate that Jefferson’s ownership of slaves was complicated by events outside his control. That’s not an excuse. That’s a fact. And if anyone’s response wants to be that “men always told their wives what to do back then – why didn’t he just do what he wanted” I submit that you live in a fantasy world. Human pair bonding is human pair bonding. Jefferson would have given more credence to a woman’s view than many of his contemporaries (the exception leaping to mind being Adams) because he is a poster child for the Age of Reason. When he looked at a person the first thing he thought of was probably not their genitals. You wish to ascribe bad intent to Jefferson when historically there is no evidence of bad intent but merely a situation that was what it was and it was probably not to anyone’s satisfaction if the truth was really known. A situation with a complication caused by marriage.
And that’s about as rare as oxygen.
Dar,
Fun cultural fact:
In music from the European Renaissance, the verb die is often used in place of orgasm. In fact, the whole culture of chivalry was in large part a coded way for nobles to fool around outside of marriage.
It turns out that as a race we humans tend to enjoy having sex. What some of us don’t enjoy is the fact that other people enjoy having sex too. Personally, I see this as an outgrowth of our evolution. The alpha male that guards all the females of his “harem” against intruders has a distinct procreational advantage over those that don’t.
As Jill, Mike and others have pointed out time and again, most movements to impose a standard of morality on people place the majority of the burden on women (although Jill will probably have a slightly different theory as to why). For instance, you call the women who dress in a certain way whorish, but don’t call the men who look at them as perverted, even though both fail to meet your code for moral behavior.
BIL,
You wrote: “I suggest wearing protection for your naughty bits.”
That doesn’t suggest respect was the motivator, it suggests fear of bodily harm. If someone is your property, it is rape. We can love people who do us harm and who use us but they are still doing us harm.
Elaine,
Economics were also a factor, but that raises the question of why not sell some of his most valuable assets, his slaves?
Given his Jefferson’s unkind take on most slave owners, it’s just as likely he did the math and decided the benefits of sale did not outweigh the potential people in his charge would be subject to worse treatment than he himself would and could provide. Cost benefit analysis existed back then even if they didn’t call it that.
Again, we cannot know his mind, only his situation. That situation cuts both ways. What we can know about Jefferson the man and his mind is the impression we can derive from his writing. That is the motive guessing game unless one treats it like a profile. In a situation where he had set before choices of “lesser evils”, I don’t think it’s unfair or out of character that he was likely to chose the least evil option he could have.
And in this situation, if least evil what his intent, his actions can be characterized in that manner just as easily as attributing a bad mens rea to him. In fact, it’s a fairer attribution than assuming guilt based on what we can know (as incomplete at that is) of his mind from his writings IMO.
This assumes he didn’t have the choice to free his slaves and set them up with an income or some land of their own. It’s not just keep them and sell them.
Jill,
The naughty bits thing was a joke. I submit that the medium lends itself to misunderstanding at times. Type has no vocal or facial cues.
BIL–
Free labor is hard to come by…unless one owns slaves.
Why didn’t Jefferson allow Sally Hemings to be freed upon his death?
Jill,
And there you go making assumptions again.
The assumptions, both yours and mine, about his motives are pointless is my point. We cannot know them. We can guess, but certainty is out. Unless you’re getting psychic powers for Xmas in which case I want to know where the purchaser got them.
What we can know is his situation(s) and the fundamentals of social psychology and pair bonding.
My point was simply that his situation was not as cut and dried as it was with the majority of slave owners and that the reason was a basic human dynamic related to pair bonding. Nothing more sinister, nothing apologetic. Mitigating, not excusing or exculpatory.
You wanted to argue motive and attribute bad intent and I just showed that because motive is always a guessing game that given the situations he was in, the characterization just as easily goes both ways on the good versus bad intent issue.
You choose to let a blemish define the man and that is your prerogative. I choose to look at the larger scope and what I see in Jefferson is a man as flawed as any human but still the smartest and probably one of the most honest President’s in this nation’s history. Despite his ownership of slaves, not because of it. This is in addition to being the primary drafter of what I consider one of the most important legal documents in history, The Declaration of Independence.
But if you want to stare at his warts, go ahead.
Elaine,
I think my answer to Jill addresses that point.
You two seem to think I pardon his slave ownership when I do not. The totality of the observation was his ability to simply free them may have had constraints – constraints that anyone in a long term relationship should be able to understand.
Excuses and mitigation are not the same thing. Part of the confusion is that American English uses the word mitigate (\ˈmi-tə-ˌgāt, v., 1 : to cause to become less harsh or hostile : mollify 2 a : to make less severe or painful) idiomatically when the proper term is militate (\ˈmi-lə-ˌtāt\, v., : to have weight or effect). Contrast to excuse (\ik-ˈskyüz, imperatively often ˈskyüz\, v.t., 1 a : to make apology for b : to try to remove blame from 2 : to forgive entirely or disregard as of trivial import : regard as excusable (graciously excused his tardiness) 3 a : to grant exemption or release to (was excused from jury duty) b : to allow to leave (excused the class) 4 : to serve as excuse for: justify).
What I said was a mitigation or militation, but it was not an excuse.
BIL,
There’s no assumption involved with, if a person is considered your property, intercourse with them is rape. I also don’t understand why it is wrong to bring up Jefferson’s bad actions. A full understanding of another human being cannot occur by denying some parts of their actions while valorizing others. I have no argument with you about the many fine things Jefferson did. These fine things are not the sum total of who he was. A full understanding means a full understanding, that is all.
BIL,
Elaine made some points earlier about the death of Jefferson’s wife. I was wondering what you thought of her observations.
BIL–
Excerpts of your responses to Jill:
“Do you know for a fact she didn’t find in the interaction both voluntary and pleasing to her in some way?”
“I submit that you live in a fantasy world. Human pair bonding is human pair bonding.”
************
Oh my! Hemings was a slave. Jefferson was her owner and master. Their sexual encounters were not likely examples of human pair bonding. I’d say they’re more likely examples of sexual bondage.
I doubt most women would form emotional and loving bonds with men in those types situations.
Ladies,
You two need to read and understand the meanings of those words – mitigate, militate and excuse.
And the assumption that slave and owner are incapable of forming other bonds than chattel is a fine example of reduction to the absurd. In all of human history, not one slave or one owner fell in love with their property/master? Quite simply bullshit. You spend all day around people and shit happens. That’s a fact.
Again, you show motive is a guessing game thus furthering my contention that Jefferson’s motives – to which you both seem to quick to demonize and brought to this party, not me – is not salient to my original point.
My point was not about slavery directly. Never was.
The observation was simply his situation vis a vis slaves was not as cut and dried as it appears due to the mitigation of having inherited from his wife’s side.
I not once excused him.
I pointed out that your arguments against him were based on unknowable attribution of motives and that my point had nothing to do with an unknowable state of mind but the mechanics of interpersonal relationships.
I’m not sure exactly why that causes so much ire toward Jefferson. And if either of you tells me that you’ve never done something you didn’t want to because of a significant other, I’m going to say “fibber”.
BIL–
“You two seem to think I pardon his slave ownership when I do not.”
I don’t believe that you do. I agree with what Jill expressed in the comments she made at 12:41 pm.
I think Jefferson was a brilliant and great man–if flawed…as all people are.
The thing I question most about Jefferson was his not having Hemings freed upon his death. I’d think that would disprove that he held feelings of true love for the woman.
Elaine,
Of all the mistakes he made as a man, not freeing Sally does stick out. I suspect if given a second chance, that might even be a regret of his that he’d wish to correct. But this goes back to motive again. When it comes to his feelings toward Sally Hemmings, without the ability to ask the man himself we’ll never know. The same can be said about the relationship with his wife. All that we can really say about Jefferson in the end is what you did. He was “a brilliant and great man–if flawed…as all people are.”
BIL–
I think you’re inferring things from what I’ve written in my comments that I hadn’t intended to imply or to express literally with my words. I wasn’t demonizing Jefferson. I questioned why he didn’t free his slaves–and so did you. All of us can only guess at Jefferson’s motives for the things he did.
Please don’t patronize Jill and me with comments such as this: “You two need to read and understand the meanings of those words – mitigate, militate and excuse.”
BIL,
That wasn’t meant to be partonizing but clarifying. If you took it as patronizing, most humble apologies.
Doh, Elaine.
Pardon. I am multitasking in a very non-safe manner at the moment. It involves scissors, tape, paper and a girlfriend very patient with my lack of “the wrapping gene”.
BIL,
I second Elaine on patronizing. I’m not concerned about motives, only actions. To have intercourse with a person who is your property is rape. This isn’t love, it is abuse of power. Motives are unnecessary to this point. Only the actions are relevant.
We’ll all agree with Elaine’s analysis about Jefferson being great but flawed.
Jill,
And you ascribe that because of the chattel relationship that no other relationship was possible. If nothing that shows you have the bias of being from the present: a modern Western woman’s reaction to the situation of slavery is probably indeed as you characterize and no other relationship would be possible. Not I said “Western”. This dismisses that for most of human history, slavery was the norm. The point I made to Elaine still applies too: when you spend all day around people someone is going to get the hots for someone and do something about it. Even a casual reading of Roman history will show that more than one citizen loved a slave but the kept the wife/husband for whatever reasons. The idea that bonding aside from owner-chattel never happened is simply unrealistic when applied to the scope of human history.
“Note that”
BIL,
I said above that we may love someone who is using or hurting us. What that doesn’t mean is, we aren’t being hurt or abused. JT used an the phrase Stockholm Syndrome today. These relationships are very real. However, they may be questioned and examined by referring back to the power nexus within which they occur. There are writings of sex slaves from Roman times which include documented attempts at suicide. They are very clear that they did not like being used sexually, that their lives were full of misery and pain. There is also Chinese poetry to consult on the subject of sexual slavery. So there are multiple ways of experiencing slavery.
You have condemned the marriages of young girls to old men in Muslim countries. Once again, it is possible that some of these girls come to love the old men who first raped them at age nine. This doesn’t erase the rape of the girls. Likewise what Jefferson engaged in was rape.
Jill,
Let’s keep it simple by not bringing minors into it.
Like I said before, your characterization of rape may be technically correct BY TODAY’S WESTERN STANDARDS but it’s also incomplete as defined by past social (and socially acceptable) contexts. Your bias isn’t that you are wrong, it’s that your analysis is out of time contextually by applying modern values that were not always applied. Your insistence on the term rape still applies a motive to Jefferson by the way the crime is currently (and I feel correctly) defined, one which you cannot know. Having a blind spot in analysis does not make one a priori incorrect in their analysis. It makes them incomplete in their analysis. It cannot be fairly characterized as rape without those caveats. To do so is the opposite of mitigation, aggravation. You seek to aggravate to rape what may or may not have been consensual on Sally’s part and you do so without direct testimony to Jefferson’s detriment from either party. Can you say for sure Sally wasn’t even the aggressor in the relationship? How do we know she didn’t snuggle up to him first? We can’t. You are letting your modern values affect the analysis of non-modern situation. And you are doing so by attributing motive – an unknowable.
Yes, I am certain. Sally Hemings’ legal status was: property. It is not legally possible for her to either consent or withdraw consent. That is not a modern interpretation of the past, it is spoken within the context of the time. If you cannot withdraw consent, intercourse cannot be called a free choice.
I am using the analogy with minors because it holds exactly. In those societies this behavior is considered legal and normal, yet most of us would call it rape. Jefferson’s behavior was also legal and normal, yet most of us today would call it rape.
Simplistic analysis, Jill. And for reasons I already explained.
did not Jefferson have a brother? All of this is pure speculation. He may never have had a relationship with Sally Hemming, it could have been his brother. Randolf Jefferson died in 1815.
and the plot thickens, supposedly Sally Hemmings was the half sister of Jefferson’s wife and that she was 3/4’s white.
I think Buddha may be correct that Jefferson and Sally Hemming were more than just slave and master considering this nugget of information.
Jill:
the moral/philosophical climate that created a Burka is no less a straight jacket on the mind of a man caught up in such a society. We see the results played out daily in the news and on this blog.
BIL–
“Can you say for sure Sally wasn’t even the aggressor in the relationship? How do we know she didn’t snuggle up to him first?
************
I can’t say for sure–but I think it highly unlikely that a female slave would be an aggressor in such a relationship. I doubt that she snuggled up to Jefferson first!
I may not be a lawyer. I don’t know a lot of law terms. I haven’t been trained to argue cases in court. But I do know this: If I saw an animal that looked like a duck, walked like a duck, and quacked like a duck–I would consider that pretty good proof that the animal I was looking at WAS a duck. Maybe what Jefferson did to Hemings wasn’t considered rape back in the old days. If it wasn’t, do you suppose Jefferson perceived his behavior as moral and ethical? I just wonder if he had a clear conscience about their relationship.
I may be a woman of the 20th/21st century–but I saw sexism at work during my professional career. I worked for one male boss who liked to rub women and put his arms around them. A teaching colleague, who also worked in my school system, dealt with the same kind of principal. She asked him not to touch her–but he didn’t stop. Her married principal used to call another single teacher on the telephone and talk about things which were totally inappropriate. We women found this kind of behavior extremely offensive. Yet, some women feared for their jobs. It was especially difficult for single women who had no other means of support. I believe a number of women felt that they had to “go along to get along.” Someone who didn’t understand the dynamics of the situation might have thought such women “enjoyed” the rubbing and touching.
If some modern women are fearful of speaking out about this type of male behavior in the workplace–I can only imagine how female slaves must have felt when their masters came to have sex with them. Their punishments could have been much harsher than losing a job.
Human relationships are complicated. Jill mentioned the Stockholm Syndrome–that’s a good example of a strange form of bonding. Children love parents who abuse and/or neglect them. That doesn’t mean the children appreciate their parents’ treatment of them. Who knows what went on in the psyche of female slaves who were required to have sex with their masters.
Elaine M:
or vice versa, men werent the only ones that took advantage of slaves.
Elaine,
I have no issue with any of that except to note that “complicated” is the key word and key to what I am trying to point out about Jefferson’s disposition of inherited property. If this was an scandalous painting no one would mention motive. Unfortunately the practice of the time allowed people to be treated as property. Also, but not so unfortunately, people hook up. And familiarity breeds the hook up. The reason I used Rome as an example was in hope that with the remoteness in time it’d be easier to access that fact and realize that HOW people come to together is really secondary to them pairing off. Group dynamic happen where there is a group. Whether they met in a bar or on the auction block, that only defines their legal status toward each other as people, not how they actually treated each other as people. My ex is supposed to stay 500 yards away from me at all times. That’s our legal definition. I make sure our personal relationship is even more restrictive. Law and choice. They actually do work independently. Jefferson may have owned Sally Hemmings, but that doesn’t mean Q.E.D. their relationship would have been considered rape by either party.
I am trained to argue law and in court and I’ll be the first to tell you the law is an abstraction – an aspiration. It’s how people treat each moment to moment that defines them. That he owned Sally as a legal point. It tells us nothing of how they were together. He may have loved Sally though we’ll never know for certain without incurring some serious roaming charges. The two, love and ownership, are not mutually exclusive. I never said it was a healthy relationship, merely a relationship and ergo a complicating factor. I find it very hard to believe that you cannot conceive of a woman using sex to get something she wants. It’s not like that’s never happened either in the course of humanity. Men are stupid. 96% of them think with only their penis and you ladies have an unfair advantage in that area – you can use your brain and be women at the same time much of the time whereas the guys? Eh, it’s about 10% non-penis thinking on any given GOOD day. Even Einstein let his Lil’ Albert do the thinking some time.
Everything said here about Jefferson has been speculative other than the original observation: Jefferson’s slave ownership wasn’t a cut and dried chattel situation and there were mitigating external factors – not exculpatory, but mitigating. Technically her legal lack of choice could be considered rape and yet that still does not preclude consent. We weren’t there. It’s that pesky time moving one direction thingy again.
Byron–
I’m not exactly sure what your “vice versa” is in reference to.
I never said that women didn’t take advantage of slaves. That wasn’t part of our discussion about Jefferson’s sexual relationship with Sally Hemings.
Byron,
Would you please clarify. Do you mean that women took advantage of their male and female slaves or do you mean slaves took advantage of their masters?
Here’s some history of Sally Hemings that we know. There are three extreme disparities in their situation: a. age, b. education/sophistication in the world “Abigail {Adams} described Sally as a “Girl about 15 or 16″ and as “quite a child, and Captain Ramsey is of opinion will be of so little Service that he had better carry her back with him.” She added that Sally “seems fond of [Polly] and appears good-natured.”[6] … Sally, however, she said, “wants more care than the child, and is wholly incapable of looking properly after her, without some superior to direct her.”[7], c. prestige of position within society and finally here’s how Ms. Hamings was described in Jefferson’s will: “When appraisers arrived at Monticello after Jefferson’s death to evaluate his estate, they described 56-year-old Hemings as “an old woman worth $50.”[20] (wikipedia)
As a slave, she could legally have been beaten for refusing any request of her master. At this point we have reached the area where there is no possibility of meaningful withdraw of consent. Whether it was Jefferson, (most likely) or his brother who had intercourse with her, the dynamics would remain the same. This is rape, starting at a young age as well.
Byron,
While I agree with you that Burka’s effect the mind’s of both men and women in the way you describe, men and women are not equally effected. Both are harmed psychologically and spiritually but women are in addition, harmed physically. This additional physical harm increases the spiritual/psychological harm beyond that suffered by men. Just as some one who tortures is in his or her own way suffering, they are not experiencing being tortured, a step further down the way, so much further that they may die or be permanently injured.
Ms. Hemings. I apologize for my error above.
BIL–
I wasn’t making any assumptions/assertions earlier when I wrote the following:
“I believe Jefferson had lots of debts and was in financial trouble for years. Maybe that’s another reason why he chose not to free any of his slaves until after he died. Weren’t many of his possessions sold after his death to pay off creditors?”
You’ll note the word “maybe” at the beginning of the second sentence in the paragraph above.
**********
You wrote in an earlier comment: “The bulk of Jefferson’s slaves were inherited via his wife’s family. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a mitigating circumstance. Unless you want to try to get rid of something your wife inherited from her family. In which case, I suggest wearing protection for your naughty bits.”
I responded: “Jefferson was a widower for many years. Jefferson’s wife died in 1782. Jefferson died in 1826. He didn’t need any protection from his wife for more than four decades.”
I didn’t suggest or say there weren’t mitigating factors. I was just bringing up a point in response to your comment.
Jill:
of course the recipient of torture is worse off.
free females most likely took sexual license with their male/female slaves. Probably not in colonial times but certainly in Rome or Greece.
BIL–
You said: “I find it very hard to believe that you cannot conceive of a woman using sex to get something she wants.”
I’m not sure where that comment is coming from. I think you’re doing some mental extrapolating from the comments I’ve made. I didn’t even know that was part of the discussion.
There are “users” of both sexes. BTW, I’ve had the good fortune to know lots of men who don’t let their genitalia do their thinking for them.
Elaine,
The remarks regarding the refusal to see those circumstances as mitigating was mainly to clear any lingering confusion among readers about my original point. I didn’t really perceive you as being on the non-mitigation side whereas Jill’s stance was somewhat less flexible. I sometimes speak sideways, especially when a conversation is in public.
BIL–
Even if a male slave owner having sex with a female slave was not legally considered rape, one would think that a person of Jefferson’s enlightenment would perceive what he was doing as wrong–whether or not there were mitigating circumstances.
Elaine,
I’m sure he was very conflicted about it. He had to be.
To Elaine M.,
I’ve answered your non-points just fine.
Through-out most of human history, including in the West, there was an understanding of what is proper and what isn’t outside the home, and that the way one dresses is important.
Recently in the West that has been abandoned.
Now people like you and Mr.Turley feel that this is the right and true and universal standard, so that other societies that choose to stick to their traditions are now wrong and bad.
And yes the modern West has abandoned most ideas of morality, for something vague and loose and rarely communal/religious. It’s not because people who brought this about are bad, rather it is a natural outgrowth of extreme secularism and hedonistic (consumerisism-fed) individualism. The same sentiment/world-view that would drive a young 17 year old idiot to spend $600 on an iPhone is the same thing that drives his sister to dress in a manner that 40-60 years ago would have tagged here as a street-walker.
-
Oh, and just you’d know, Clinton committed BOTH sexual indiscretions (funny how infidelity is now just “sexual indiscretion”), and killed “thousands and thousands of innocent people” over-seas as well.
To Gyges,
“It turns out that as a race we humans tend to enjoy having sex. What some of us don’t enjoy is the fact that other people enjoy having sex too.”
So what? ofcourse people have always enjoed sex, otherwise none of us would be here today.
The difference is that the idea of sex and sexuality as a thing to display and flaunt publicly was rarely acceptable in most societies, including the West, until recently.
Dar–
I asked you the following questions to which I received no response–so I’ll ask them again:
Is it moral to force young girls into marriages with older men? Are honor killings of women moral? Is it moral to treat women as subservient to men and allow them few freedoms?
BTW, I used the word “indiscretion” because I didn’t want to use the actual term for what happened between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. I was using verbal discretion.
Jill,
Again, legal relations are an abstraction. Actual interactions another matter.
I stand by my analysis that your reasoning has a blind spot. You can scream rape all you want. The fact is you have nothing to argue from in the specifics of their day to day relationship simply because you weren’t there any more than I was. You want to put Hemmings on a pedestal as victim in her relationship with Jefferson despite there being no evidence of their individual intent toward each other going either way. Do you have proof Sally Hemmings didn’t consent? No. Do I have proof they were in love. No.
You say rape, I say you can’t know without being psychic because the salient feature of rape is lack of consent. What the law allowed them to do and what they did or did not actually do are not the same thing simply because the law said so.
Not legally having legal recourse or facing punishment if you refuse is not the same thing as not consenting DESPITE WHAT THE LAW SAYS. A possibility you seem willing to completely dismiss. It was also against the law for blacks and whites to sleep together in many places but there sure are a lot of those coffee colored humans running about and not all of them the product of rape. Some people LIKE the Jungle Fever, Jill. Sex happens. When it’s not consensual, it’s rape, but not having the legal capacity to refuse is not the equivalent of not consenting no matter how many times you say it. You’re not just doing Jefferson a disservice, but Hemmings too. You’re now starting sound a lot like the “Men Bad, Women Good” crowd, Jill. And that’s horseshit.
Your argument is still fundamentally flawed.
To Elaine M.,
There is no need to use the word “indiscretion”, as “cheating” and “infedility” and “being an ass” are just fine.
As for your other questions, I don’t see how they relate to this discussion.
I could ust as easily ask how killing millions of u born babies each year is moral, but I won’t as it has nothing to do with this discussion.
But if you want:
“Is it moral to force young girls into marriages with older men?”
I don’t see how anyone is “forced” to do anything. Such marriages are rare anyhow.
-
“Are honor killings of women moral?”
Not your business. Every society has its own standards, which goes back to original point of not forcing your ways on others.
In many lands drug dealers are executed. Many would find this extreme, but to them it is their way. Just because things like “honor” and “chastity” and “morals” mean nothing to you, doesn’t mean they don’t for others.
Besides, such things are also rare. Most of the time when a daughter is found to have screwed around, she and the guy are made to marry each other (which I’m sure you disapprove of as well, thinking that everyone should be free to f**k each other anytime anyplace).
-
“Is it moral to treat women as subservient to men and allow them few freedoms?”
Purely subjective. You may think they’re treated “subservient”, but they may not feel that way, since unlike you they may not believe in that nonsense about men and women being exactly the same and doing the exact same things in life.
Elaine M.,
I was thinking of Holiday Dress. Would you suppose you could tell me how to get the Holly to not prick?
Buddha,
I am asking that you refrain from personal attacks and condescension in your posts to me. I took each of your points seriously and answered them one by one. You may not agree with my analysis but that is not an excuse for name calling. It is unworthy of any thoughtful discussion of a situation.
Gyges:
I bottled on saturday and the beer was all clean and everything but tasted like water. Did we screw up or will the bottling bring out the flavors?
We put it in a secondary a week or so ago and it just sat. This was a kit and the hoppes were pelletized. Could this be the problem?
It had a bunch of sugar in it, about 7 lbs altogether what with the malt extract, malt and brown sugar.
?????????????????
Jill,
Logic is a precision tool. You don’t like being taken to task for being wrong. It’s your logical error in analysis at issue. If you don’t like being wrong, learn to proof your logic better. I have nothing to apologize for or refrain from other than what I have already stated. You made an inflammatory claim and it was unfounded other than to show your bias. And I didn’t mean bias as in prejudice or in a bad way whatsoever other than bias in the analytical sense of the term. Everyone has some and it screws with their logic too. Your logic was and is flawed in re rape unless you’re a time traveling mind reader. It’s extemporaneous, attenuated on abstraction and assumption rather than a knowable reality of group dynamics and pair bonding. I like you Jill, but if you think I was being mean to you because I showed the giant hole in your reasoning, that’d be your problem.
Byron,
You can ask Buddha for my e-mail, there are lots of things that could’ve gone wrong, and I don’t want to take up space here going through the check list.
Buddha,
If you lost my e-mail with your old account just let me know, I’ll get it to you again.
BIL–
I believe that Jill addressed your points seriously–and responded in a thoughtful manner. At no point in the dicussion did I think she sounded a lot like the “Men Bad, Women Good” crowd.
I may need some clarification of the following: “Sex happens. When it’s not consensual, it’s rape, but not having the legal capacity to refuse is not the equivalent of not consenting no matter how many times you say it.”
Lots of not’s and a no in that second sentence. Are you saying that because Hemings had no legal right to refuse fornicating with Jefferson that it couldn’t possibly be considered as rape–even if Hemings wanted to say no?
Gyges,
I did indeed loose your address. I hadn’t copied it over to my regular e-mail yet when I lost the old dummy account. Drop me a line and I’ll be glad to forward it on to Byron.
And while were at it, Bob, your e-mail address also met the same fate as Gyges. Drop me a line sometime, my Kantian friend.
Gyges/Buddha:
thank you.
Elaine,
No.
What I am saying is that lack of recourse and actual lack of consent are not the same thing. One is a legal relation – the chattel relationship – and one is normally occurring natural human interaction that can have legal repercussions without consent of all parties involved because rape is defined as non-consensual intercourse. That as chattel she had no legal standing or recourse and could have been punished for refusing an order does not mean Q.E.D. that she did not consent. We don’t know her state of mind. Nor his. Nor can we. Rape is a crime of violence and domination, not sex, and the key component of the offense is lack of consent. Just because legally at the time she had no right to refuse an order it does not mean that she didn’t, couldn’t or wouldn’t consent to an affair with Jefferson. Her reasons for doing so would be her own secret taken to the grave and we’ll never know. By the same token, we’ll never know if she was compelled by force either. But to call “rape” when we simply cannot know is just not fair to either of them as individuals. It demonizes one and victimizes the other.
Elaine M:
Are you saying that she had to say yes by virtue of her position and so that is the equivalent of rape? In general I would agree with you, but I don’t believe the man who wrote the Declaration would force his will upon a subordinate woman and this is, I think, what Buddha is saying.
What you and Jill seem to be saying is that Thomas Jefferson is an inveterate scumbag or at least a typical male in this regard. And I believe that is the idea that Buddha is taking to task (conjecture only).
You don’t seem to allow for the possibility that Jefferson did not force his will upon her, he may even have resisted her advances at first. I may be putting Jefferson on a pedestal to which he does not belong, but the man that wrote the words he has written should be given the benefit of the doubt at the very least.
Men who believe in property rights, as in a person has a right to self ownership do not take what is not theirs to take. I know this isn’t making much sense in terms of slavery but the idea that a person can be a slave and a free agent to the extent granted by the owner is still possible. Even though Jefferson may have owned her, did not necessarily mean he was willing to take all manner of liberties without her willing consent.
Hey amybody want to talk about Barbie or the Burka. Thats what this thread is about.
I could post some climate change stuff but I don’t want to take over another thread. It would be against your will and could be considered rape.
BIL–
I’m aware that rape is a crime of violence and domination–and not sex.
Hemings WAS a victim–a victim of slavery. What say could she have in any of the things that were done to her? Jefferson didn’t have to have her consent. She may have submitted to him because she had no alternative. In that case, I’d call it rape– even it wasn’t violent rape. I see her as a victim.
Byron,
Not specifically but I would say Jefferson using compulsion for sex would seem out of character considering his writings, no matter Sally’s legal status.
Elaine,
I won’t argue that she wasn’t a victim of slavery. I will argue you cannot know if she was victim of rape without talking to her first. Consent as I was using the term should be read as a voluntary act. Coerced consent is not actual consent. It’s coercion. None of this changes that she could have actually consented to sex with Jefferson. Not one bit. You assume the worst motives not just on Jefferson’s part, but also assume there is NO WAY that Sally could have actually had feelings for Jefferson.
As proof she may (not did, I’m not claiming to know her state of mind) have thought their relationship more than rape, I offer that she bore children to term and cared for them when everyone knows there were abortions and forced miscarriages available then too. They were just dangerous and done in secret. She even told some of them their actual lineage. Do you tell your progeny they’re the proud product of rape when a lie would have been just as acceptable as there were no DNA tests at the time? There is no proof of the absolutely essential element of the crime of rape here: Sally Hemmings’ state of mind vis a vis consent. Slave, without doubt. Victim. And bad on Jefferson for not freeing her without doubt. Rape victim? You say yes yet all of this is pure speculation.
You have no way of knowing whether she felt compelled or actually cared for the man short of asking her, ergo, a claim of rape is simply unprovable as a matter of logic. You presume a crime here without being able to prove the essential element.
Byron–
“What you and Jill seem to be saying is that Thomas Jefferson is an inveterate scumbag or at least a typical male in this regard. And I believe that is the idea that Buddha is taking to task (conjecture only).”
WOW! Where in any of my comments did I ever state or imply that I think that the typical male is not honorable? Have you read all of my comments?
For example–
Buddha said the following: “Men are stupid. 96% of them think with only their penis.”
I replied: “I’ve had the good fortune to know lots of men who don’t let their genitalia do their thinking for them.”
Does that sound like something that a woman who has a low opinion of men would say?
You and Buddha may be trying to understand/imagine what Jefferson’s thought processes/feelings might have been. Maybe Jill and I are looking at the Hemings/Jefferson relationship from the perspective of a woman who was a slave–a human being who had no power and no say in what happened to her.
Elaine:
maybe I got a little carried away with inveterate scumbag.
Elaine,
No, I’m looking at rape as a crime defined as non-consensual intercourse. I’m big on definitions. If you can’t prove 1) lack of consent and 2) intercourse, you can’t prove rape. Well there is no doubt they had intercourse, but your answer in no way addressed the logic that you cannot and do not know Sally Hemmings state of mind. It’s an emotional response to a logical failing to prove a specific element of the crime charged. Your admirable empathy for the woman is clouding the legal analysis. Slave, yes. Rape victim, you’ll never know. Believe what you like, but without evidence or direct testimony to Ms. Hemmings state of mind, Mr. Jefferson would be free to leave any court in the land on the charge of rape. If his attorney wasn’t insane.
Slaver and rapist are not the same crime. No amount of sympathy will change that. If you want to talk about Jefferson being guilty of being a slaver, by today’s laws, he’d be in prison. But as a alleged rapist by definition, he goes free until Sally steps to the bar.
And talk about timely.
Church of Scientology being charged with slavery and human trafficking.
Lindstein v. Miscavige
http://www.scribd.com/doc/23175190/Complaint-filed112509
BIL–
I’m not charging Jefferson with the crime of rape. I thought we were discussing the Hemings/Jefferson relationship–not as a case of rape one would bring to court…but as to the possibility of what might have gone on between the two of them.
Maybe I didn’t make myself clear about that. If I didn’t, my words failed me.
Crosstalk happens Elaine. An inherent flaw with communicating via an intermediary medium. No worries. I was also not allowing that you, as a librarian not a lawyer, could be using a different definition for rape.
I say no autopsy, no foul.
BIL & Byron–
While we’re discussing male/female relations–I thought I’d leave you–at least for the time being–with a poem I wrote about Rush Limbaugh around the time he was holding A Female Summit to find out why he wasn’t as popular with women as he was with men.
RUSH: “Ladies and gentlemen, we are going to do the Female Summit today, by the way. We will do the Female Summit in the third hour of the program today, and the reason we’re going to do the Female Summit is Public Policy Polling in North Carolina published a national poll on your beloved host, El Rushbo. They found I’ve got 46% approval, 43% disapproval, but I got a huge gender gap. My gender gap between men and women is 31%. Thirty-one percent is the differential between male approval and female approval. So yesterday I said, “What can I do about this? What could be done? What is the explanation for this?”
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_022509/content/01125109.guest.html
Since he wanted an explanation, I obliged him—in rhyming verse.
Why Don’t Women Like Rush Limbaugh?: A Rhyming Response
Limbaugh, Limbaugh, cookies and cream,
Rush kissed the girls and made them scream.
He asked them if they’d like to play
But the feminazis ran away.
Limbaugh, Limbaugh, pudding and pie,
Ole clueless Rush couldn’t figure why
He didn’t rate with the “weaker” sex.
Maybe it’s ’cause he has three necks!
Maybe it’s ’cause he’s full of bile
And sports a snide satanic smile
And calls us babes—and things much worse.
Here’s your answer, Rush, in this little verse.
BIL: “By the same token, we’ll never know if she was compelled by force either. But to call “rape” when we simply cannot know is just not fair to either of them as individuals. It demonizes one and victimizes the other.”
different entry: “…If you can’t prove 1) lack of consent and 2) intercourse, you can’t prove rape.”
Byron: “but I don’t believe the man who wrote the Declaration would force his will upon a subordinate woman and this is, think, what Buddha is saying.”
————
Slavery is the ultimate force majeuer. It relieves the owner of any obligation to fulfill any aspect of any recognized social or legal compact with the slave. The slave can’t give consent because they have no legal or moral standing; they aren’t even people, they’re property. You can try to parse it with all kinds of language defining this and that as an intellectual exercise but for all practical purposes all sex with a slave is rape.
Srsly, did anyone reading this thread ask their PC if IT wanted to visit the Professor’s blawg before you hit the ‘power on’ button. Of course not, why would you? it’s property, you don’t have to ask a utilitarian tool if it wants to be used.
You don’t ask your house if it wants you living in it, it’s your property. The very nature of the property/owner relationship precludes consent.
If you want to think Jefferson was too sensitive and honorable to take full and customary advantage of the nature of the relationship (and actually use force) then do so but let’s not attempt to alter the nature of the relationship or the implications of that relationships on the victims- the slaves- post-facto for our own reasons.
lottakatz:
we are only talking Jefferson in particular. Maybe he raped her 5 days a week for 20 years, I don’t know and neither do you. He may not have even touched her, he did have a brother.
Slavery is wrong what else is there to say? I also like Jefferson and Madison. Do I like the fact they owned slaves, no. But the sum total of their lives was positive.
AY–
“I was thinking of Holiday Dress. Would you suppose you could tell me how to get the Holly to not prick?”
I doubt you’d look good in a “holiday dress.” Besides, I just love that natty elf ensemble you’ve taken to wearing of late. May I suggest that you make your outfit more festive for the holiday season by 1) pinning a few sprigs of holly to your white collar, 2) festooning the peak of your pointy cap with some mistletoe, and 3) encircling each of your ankles with a small pine wreath.
lotta,
Again.
Slavery is one crime.
Rape is another.
You can prove one as a factual matter. He was a documented slave owner. You cannot prove the other without testimony of someone long dead. It’s that simple. It’s a matter of proof.
You cannot attribute a state of mind to Sally Hemmings simply because you dislike her slave status. We call that “making shit up”. The crimes are discrete. There is no force majure issue. One can be a slave owner, a rapist, or a slave owner-rapist. But being one does not automatically make one guilty of the the other even if you are sleeping with a slave. Guilt of one crime is not the ability to convict of the other without evidence of all the elements of the crime charged. Throw in treason if you’re going to throwing out accusations you don’t have evidence of all the requisite elements.
What part of none of us are psychic isn’t getting though here? I don’t think I can any clearer that you are attributing as fact what is actually an assumption. STATE OF MIND. Prove Hemmings state of mind. Without testimony you can’t.
You say rape. I say prove it. That’s what a judge would say too.
So far, all I’ve gotten is lip service about SLAVERY. The issue was RAPE. The elements of rape are intercourse and lack of consent. Her chattel status does not preclude her giving actual consent. Just because legally she had no legal recourse to refuse does not mean that she refused. That’s just logic. Unless of course she has no free will which would make her a primitive animal, wouldn’t it? You are degrading her as a human by implying a motive to her you have NO WAY of knowing. Your altruism in doing so is irrelevant.
Quite simply, prove Sally Hemmings state of mind concerning Thomas Jefferson.
You can’t. And because you can’t you can’t prove rape.
You cannot get beyond your distaste for slavery to see you are trying to convict Jefferson of a crime he may or may not have committed without proof of all the elements of the crime being proven superficially much less to a standard of judgment. All because you find the idea – even the possibility – of mutual attraction repulsive because she was property. Before she was property, she was people. And people sometimes find happiness in strange places whether it offends your sensibilities or not.
Yeah, she was a slave. We’ll never know if she considered her interaction with Jefferson rape or a relationship though unless we can ask her. It’s that simple.
Buddha: “You say rape. I say prove it.”
Technically, both you and lottakatz are wrong.
Why? Because you’re both attempting to predicate non-existence.
Lottakatz is correct in that slaves were considered property; not people. The 3/5th’s compromise didn’t make slaves 3/5ths of a person, it was simply a method of apportionment in the house of representatives. Yet this also entails the lack of something called a person in lieu of a piece of property.
Accordingly, on the one hand, one cannot rape a piece of property. And according to the fugitive slave clause, said piece of property can’t even escape to another state if only to be declared a person.
Alternatively, the exercise of power over the inalienable right of self-ownership (viz slavery) is tyranny per se AND THEREFORE the person being treated as property is metaphysically incapable of giving consent to intercourse–thus necessitating the lesser included offense (to slavery/tyranny) of rape.
Bob,
Metaphysically. Metaphysically I can’t leave this room. You also deprive Sally of her free will. Tyranny per se? Did that somehow negate choice? Negate desire? Negate the frailties and vagaries of human emotion? Even the choice to love an owner? Property or not, she was a person. As a person, she could have consented even if ordered to comply as property. An order does not an odious task make and some orders through out history have been carried out with gusto by slave and free person alike. Her legal status as property does not change that she was a person. That’s why slavery is illegal now. It’s wrong. None of this addresses her state of mind. If you say rape is a lesser included offense of slavery, I say the defense to the lesser included charge is actual consent.
Now prove she didn’t actually consent.
Without her testimony, you simply can’t.
“Property or not, she was a person. As a person, she could have consented even if ordered to comply as property.”
Property or person; not both.
“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every[one] has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.”
“AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to.”
Thus the reason I said…
the exercise of power over the inalienable right of self-ownership (viz slavery) is tyranny per se AND THEREFORE the person being treated as property is metaphysically incapable of giving consent to intercourse–thus necessitating the lesser included offense (to slavery/tyranny) of rape.
Property is incapable of choice by definition.
To clarify:
Property owned by a person is incapable of true choice. My dog is my property, and it is free to make its choices, but so long as I’m its owner, in my presence, the dog’s only real choice is whether to obey or not.
To clarify.
No matter what the damn law said, she was a person. With free will.
Compulsion legally does not equate to not consenting.
BIL, were this an arbitration I would raise a threshold question. I would that your argument regarding consent was premature and in all likelihood moot because the threshold issue that first needs to be determined is if the nature of the relationship precludes any discussion of consent as a standard. Hemming’s state of mind is not dispositive if as a matter of law she was not considered an individual or citizen and/or did not have the legal rights, (specifically to refuse to have sex) normally accorded same.
The nature of a choice (Hemming’s state of mind) to mitigate or excuse an allegation of rape can only be considered if the possibility of a choice is present. If a choice to refuse to have sex with someone is precluded by the nature of the relationship, then the act must be called rape by any legal definition. The only relevant legal question is the threshold question on the nature of the relationship.
(That’s why one can not divorce the subject of slavery from the allegation of rape whenever one discusses a slave-owner having sex with a slave. The topics can not be severed.)
—
Byron, “Jefferson in particular” can not be divorced from the class of owners if the threshold question is considered.
—
Bob,esq: “Alternatively, the exercise of power over the inalienable right of self-ownership (viz slavery) is tyranny per se AND THEREFORE the person being treated as property is metaphysically incapable of giving consent to intercourse–thus necessitating the lesser included offense (to slavery/tyranny) of rape.”
Exactly, Slavery is an absolutely coercive relationship for the slave characterized by a complete lack of choice in any regard.
—
BIL: “Just because legally she had no legal recourse to refuse does not mean that she refused. That’s just logic. ”
Is that the argument you as a defense attorney would make to a jury regarding a plaintiff that was slipped a ruffie and raped? Of course not. The law provides that when one is too incapacitated to give consent then consent can’t be inferred. Slavery is an incapacity of self determination for the slave.
“No matter what the damn law said, she was a person. With free will.”
She was a person? Really? Not even a hundred years later would Sally be considered a “person.”
“4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its “people or citizens.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them.”
http://supreme.justia.com/us/60/393/case.html
The ‘will’ of property is legally irrelevant and for all intents and purposes completely non-existent.
When I said earlier that you were attempting to predicate non-existence, I meant that you were attempting to apply a “person-predicate” to a piece of property. In the time of Jefferson, Sally was not a person in any legal sense of the term.
Thus when you said: “Her chattel status does not preclude her giving actual consent. Just because legally she had no legal recourse to refuse does not mean that she refused. That’s just logic.”
You’re providing a contradictory definition of Sally, i.e. one definition necessarily precluding the other, and attempting to apply law (i.e. the predicate) to both. The law saw her as property and continued to see all ‘Negros’ as such for nearly a century after Sally passed on.
Accordingly, the whole IRAC (‘Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion’) rap reserved for legal analysis, e.g. “is this a rape?”, does not apply to the relationship between an owner and his property.
On a Lockean level, Sally was raped with or without her consent simply by virtue of being the Jefferson’s property during intercourse.
Within the American legal system, i.e. ignoring the founding and simply taking a positivist view of the constitution, the rape never happened.
Lotta,
No, but it’s an argument I’d make against metaphysics, which are not law. Metaphysical arguments are also not law for a reason. It’s a different set of abstractions. Defining the nature of reality and the nature of law is exactly the crux here. One can remain a theoretical and observational exercise and the other has to deal with how people really act and it does so without much grace at times. Drafters are human and humans are imperfect. That’s why we discard outmoded practices like slavery. Not every idea is a winner out of the gate. The difference between metaphysics and law is analogous to the relation between pure science and engineering. One seeks basic principles but the other must (try) to apply them to an often much messier human dynamic. But in your version of reality, the range of human sexual responses to each other is limited by a legal construct. Okay. I’ll bet my 250,000 years of evolution against your 2,000 years of philosophy and law and raise you a Darwin. Once again: coffee colored people. They were around then too. Not all of them the product of rape. Your observation, and the law, are not in sync with the reality of human nature when applied to groups and pair bonding. People will hook up. They will hook up inappropriately and across what are considered normal social and sometimes legal boundaries. It’s our nature. Forbidden fruit and all that. What the legal situation surrounding them and how it defines their relationship is not indicative of individual actual consent to intercourse. At the bottom line, intercourse is a binary transaction totally devoid of legal consideration. If the answer is 1/1, then it’s never rape. If it’s 1/0, it’s always rape. It’s only when free will, choice, is violated that rape occurs and the law becomes involved. But if law and desire are moving in the same direction, it cannot be rape by definition. You cannot know Sally’s desires without asking her. Inexact language is the enemy of truth. The truth of human nature tells me that without testimony to state of mind, a charge of rape is unprovable. If you want to stipulate that having sex with slaves is immoral and should be criminal, fine. That I’ll buy. But you can’t call it rape without proof of the lack of actual consent. By your own argument, property can’t be raped. The term is bad. Imputed lack of consent distorts the reality of human sexuality.
If you want another example of the law doing this exact same thing, I submit DADT, anti-abortion laws and any state that still considers sex between an 18 year old and 17 year old statutory rape. Not realistic. Ergo, less functional.
Yes, Bob, she was a person.
Real. She was born. She lived. She loved. She hated. She died. Her mitochondrial DNA walks the Earth today. Part of her is now other persons.
That the law was so primitive to consider her property is another consideration. You may be a Kantian, but foremost I’m a humanist. Sally Hemmings was a person. That’s the reality.
I appreciate the point you were making about her not being a legal person in Jefferson’s time. I think my comments about the term rape answer that. By your own logic, if she’s property, she can’t be raped. It has to be called something else. Rape is inaccurate and untruthful absent further data.
pardon, instead of immoral, substitute unethical. It has been a long day and my word choice function is going to bed before I am.
BTW, thank you all for a thoroughly enjoyable thread.
BIL–
Rape is rape…no matter what you call it. You can call a chicken a turkey–but it’s still a chicken.
I was wondering how this Jefferson/Hemings thread got started on the Burka Barbie post. Just a simple little comment: “We’ve had presidents who owned slaves. Was that moral?” It’s interesting how the discussions on one subject can veer off in all kinds of directions at the Turley blog–even without trolls hijacking the threads.
Buddha: “That the law was so primitive to consider her property is another consideration. You may be a Kantian, but foremost I’m a humanist. Sally Hemmings was a person. That’s the reality.”
Ex post facto. You have to apply the law as it existed in that time. And seeing that you brought Kant into it, I’d also let you know that if I were prosecuting Jefferson for rape in that time, I’d shove the second paragraph of the Declaration down his throat in such a clean, abstract & purely clinical manner as to make him sob. You know; the whole idea of race and gender being non-existent and irrelevant from a non-spacio-temporal perspective; i.e. in the eyes of Divine Providence, etc., etc.
It’s interesting how the discussions on one subject can veer off in all kinds of directions at the Turley blog–even without trolls hijacking the threads.
Yes it is now isn’t it. oh the hypocrisy. Good for you Ms M. for seeing that it’s just not me. Everyone hijacks threads 128 comments on this thread, Dolly Parton Glass Stegall Act Buddah attacking Jill, then rape. Tisk Tisk I say. You all should be ashamed of yourself.
BTW it’s important to get 8 hours of sleep, DURING THE NIGHT.
Mr. Lincoln: “It is said that the slaveholder has the same [political] (sic) right to take his negroes to Kansas that a freeman has to take his hogs or his horses. This would be true if negroes were property in the same sense that hogs and horses are.
“But is this the case? It is notoriously not so. Southern men do not treat their negroes as they do their horses. There are 400,000 free negroes in the United States. All the race came to this country as slaves. How came these negroes free? At $500 each, their value is $2,000,000. Can you find two million dollars worth of any other kind of property running about without an owner?
“These negroes are free, because their owners, in some way and at some time, felt satisfied that the creatures had mind, feeling, souls, family affections, hopes, joys, sorrows—something that made them more than hogs or horses.
“Shall the Slaveholders require us to be more heartless and mean than they, and treat those beings as property which they themselves have never been able to treat so?” Pages 245-46.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idxhttp://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/01/bill-russell-constitutional.html?c=lincoln;rgn=div1;view=text;idno=lincoln2;node=lincoln2%3A281;cc=lincoln
Maybe you can ask for your own personal thread to talk about rape. It’s such an interesting subject to begin with. I know Slartsafart asked for one on climategate but the door is still closed. Wonder if she will just pick an old thread like Tinky Winky Teletubbies gone wild. There was only three comments on that great story. Maybe one of the thousand threads of cops gone mad. That would work. Oh but don’t hijack threads.
bdaman:
why the gripping?
gripe/griping
although Bdaman could be gripping something as he writes.
Just throwin it back at them. Slart posted yesterday that I hijack threads, which is factual, but everybody does it. It’s like taking a dump. Everybody does it some just stink when they do it.
Thats Ok they accuse me of being a bad spiller, I mean speller to.
I could open mozilla they have auto spell check, but who cares. People that point out that you missed spelled a word are just nit pickin.
bdaman–
Sometimes a person makes a comment as part of a discussion that another person picks up on and comments upon. Then the discussion might veer of in a different direction. There are those–with ulterior motives–who hijack threads on purpose. There is a difference.
Of course, you–or anyone else–can always start your own blogs if there are particular subjects that you’d like to discuss with others via the Internet. It’s really easy to do.
bdaman–
“BTW it’s important to get 8 hours of sleep, DURING THE NIGHT.”
Not if you’re a vampire!
Bdaman,
Why don’t you?
bdaman:
as evidenced by this thread, they don’t care if the thread diverges on it’s own but you just pull stuff out of thin cold air (AGW reference) and paste without the slightest regard for content of the existing thread.
Someone:
Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemmings.
Bdman:
He raped Polar Bears too and here is the proof:
http://www.tjrapedpolarbears.com (web site about veracity of AGW)
Bdaman:
and another: http://www.jamesmadisonrapedeskimos.com
bdaman:
http://www.georgemasonfreedthepolarbears.com
Spelling correction: “Veer of” should have read veer off in my comment at 9:17 am.
bdaman:
as evidenced by this thread, they don’t care if the thread diverges on it’s own but you just pull stuff out of thin cold air (AGW reference) and paste without the slightest regard for content of the existing thread.
Someone:
Thomas Jefferson raped Sally Hemmings.
Bdman:
He raped Polar Bears too and here is the proof:
www tjrapedpolarbears com (web site about veracity of AGW)
Bdaman:
and another: www jamesmadisonrapedeskimos com
bdaman:
www georgemasonfreedthepolarbears com
Why don’t you?
Are you kidding me, the money is to good for doing what I’m doing. As long as you meat yor Quota the pudding is quite tasty, and sometimes you have to eat your meet, if you don’t you can’t have any puddin. How can you have any puddin if you don’t eat your meet.
Elaine rape is rape, hijacking a thread is hijacking a thread. You can justify it any way you like but the result is still the same. Allow me to ask, did the property owner of this blawg consent to the hijacking of this thread? Hummm I think not. If someone is passed out drunk or incapacitated and intercourse takes place just because you were unable to say no doesn’t mean it’s not rape.
Elaine & Bob,
You can define rape as something it’s not all you want too but you can’t paint me with not following the definition. I’m not the one having and issue with “actual consent” as a valid defense. You’ve all tried to dance around your lack of proof. Her chattel status IS NOT proof of lack of actual consent. It’s proof she was a slave with limited rights and recourse and that is all. It is not the same thing as rape. That legally her refuse was impaired doesn’t Q.E.D. means that she DIDN’T consent. Again, if desire and law are moving the same direction, it can’t be rape.
If she was property, it wasn’t rape by your own admissions as property cannot be raped. If she wasn’t property but being considered a human (like I am giving her credit for DESPITE her chattel status), she wasn’t raped if she actually consented. She could think you know.
You claim actual consent is somehow not possible, yet offer no proof relevant to the specific case at hand other than her legal status as property. Either way, it MAY NOT HAVE BEEN RAPE. Yet you both rush to the conclusion she COULD NOT HAVE CONSENTED AS A MATTER OF FACT. Which isn’t the reality of human sexuality.
And how exactly do you know what she thought? Either of you? And I don’t to hear about her being a slave anymore. You can presume coercion based on her legal status. It’s still a presumption and a presumption isn’t a fact. You can’t prove it without her testimony. Either of you. Any more than I can prove 100% it wasn’t rape without her testimony. Rape is a crime against a person but if that person feels no wrong in the area of sexual interaction has occurred and they wanted to do it? It’s NOT rape. Period. No matter how they met or how much you don’t like it. Sex without the trauma of coercion is just sex. You saying her status was fundamentally coercive still does not eliminate the fact she could have actually consented. Since assuming is really a big theme here, I’ll make one too. Assuming that like most lesser included charges, if Jefferson were before the bar for slavery and lesser crimes, her actual consent would still vitiate the ability to legally penalize him for that lesser included charge even if convicted of being a slaver. It’s unconstitutional to punish a man for crime he wasn’t convicted of. Unless you want to exclude rape from that little bit of due process.
The bottom line is her reaction and motivations are required to answer whether it was rape or not. Everything else is just guessing.
The fact is without proof of her state of mind, it’s speculative and semantics based on her legal status versus the fact she was a flesh and blood person who may or may not have thought sleeping with Jefferson was fine. You ASSUME she thought it was rape. And THOUGHT is a key part to the crime: if she didn’t feel coerced or threatened into sex IT’S NOT RAPE. Period. Her status as property is irrelevant or tangential at best and you cannot ASSUME her emotional state or her intentions from that alone. That’s still called “making shit up”.
Neither of you are psychic, yet you both claim to know she thought the interactions were rape. That’s both supposition and prejudicial.
Rape is (and was) non-consensual sex. Unless you can prove her state of mind, you can’t prove coercion. Your evidence of her chattel status may be aggravating evidence (in the sense of the word opposite to mitigation/militation), but it’s not conclusive without her testimony. It can’t be conclusive without Sally’s testimony because of her state of mind is key to the charge. Basic logic.
I can say that light acts as both a wave and a particle, but if I can’t prove it acts like a wave, I’m talking crap. It’s all about the proof people, and proof of her legal status as chattel isn’t proof she didn’t love the man she had children with or felt that she was raped. Saying YOU think it was rape is not the same as proving SHE THOUGHT it was rape. And if she didn’t think it was rape, it simply wasn’t rape no matter what you guys think. That’s how it would be today if they met in a bar. That’s how it was then.
“her ability to refuse”
And I see some trolls cannot differentiate thread high jacking and naturally evolving conversations.
Ignorance and poor language skills are par for your course, bdaman.
WOW someone needs to put the straw down. That stuff will ruin your nasal cavity.
Mornin Mr. Sunspot I see you were up with another all nighter. Must have some really good coffee beans EHh!!!!
I quess no cases today, or is the jury still out.
Wow, someone really needs to realize I don’t give a flying F what they think. And for the record, I’d rather have a straw up my nose (and I think cocaine is EVIL) than have my head where you keep yours, Propaganda Bigot Boy. When I take the straw out, it won’t make an audible “POP!” like it will when you pull your head out – whether it’s up your own butt or somebody else’s.
Pardon, I meant “if” not “when”. That lack of sleep is really getting me down. Thanks for your faux concern, Dipstick.
BIL–
I wrote: “Rape is rape…no matter what you call it. You can call a chicken a turkey–but it’s still a chicken.”
I didn’t write that in reference to any particular situation. I was talking semantics. I wasn’t attempting to prove that Hemings must have been raped by Jefferson. I don’t feel I’m qualified to participate in a legal discussion about the Hemings/Jefferson relationship. As I stated in an earlier comment, I’m just taking part in this discussion. To me–looking at it from my personal feminine perspective: Rape IS rape…no matter what you call it–and whether or not in can be proved in a court of law.
I think you may have inferred more from my comment than what I meant to express with my words.
Elaine,
Again, even from the female perspective, you can’t know it’s rape without talking to Sally first. The crime of rape is a mental crime and if she didn’t feel coerced, it may be “improper sex” of some sort, but it wouldn’t be rape. And all Jefferson would have had to do to modify their chattel relationship was say “You’re free to refuse this advance.” And we can’t know that he didn’t, or that she didn’t initiate the relationship either, without talking to her.
Rape has a very narrow legal definition. It’s “the crime of sexual intercourse (with actual penetration of a woman’s vagina with the man’s penis) without consent and accomplished through force, threat of violence or intimidation (such as a threat to harm a woman’s child, husband or boyfriend).[Law.com]
Even at the common usage, aside from being a plant in the mustard family, rape is relevantly defined as roughly the same thing by Webster’s. The problem here is perception. That she was a slave is creating the perception she was presumably coerced to have sex. That does not follow logically if there are other reasonable scenarios where she felt she wasn’t under compulsion for sex. I don’t think anything I’ve said about the nature of human sexual interaction and pair bonding is unreasonable either. I have made no outlandish claims unless you count as outlandish the idea she might have actually cared for him and he for her. Crazier love stories have happened. To sort through those scenarios for the truth though – both legally and ethically, we are logically required to know her state of mind regarding Jefferson before concluding he used force. His perception is not required in this analysis as it’s only the alleged victim’s perception of coercion that makes sex into rape.
It might have been rape. Equally so, it might not have been. Only Sally can answer that question.
BIL–
I wrote: “To me–looking at it from my personal feminine perspective: Rape IS rape…no matter what you call it–and whether or not in can be proved in a court of law.” That should have read: “…whether or not ‘it’ can be proved in a court of law.”
I don’t think I was clear as to what I was referring when I used “in/it” in that comment. I wasn’t speaking about the Jefferson/Hemings relationship–about whether or not the relationship involved rape. I was adressing the issue of rape in a general, non-legal/semantic way.
Maybe I should just leave the rest of this discussion to the lawyers.
Just one more thing before I bow out of this thread: A man could commit a rape–yet be found innocent of the crime in a court of law. Does that mean that the man who is found to be legally innocent of the crime–can’t be, in reality, guilty of the rape?
Elaine,
Again, we’ve run into a limitation of the medium.
As to your last comment: yes. Legal guilt and actual guilt can be two different things. Justice Learned Hand once called law a “pale shadow of justice”. It’s not perfect but it can be more efficient and just than it is now. Need I say more than OJ? It’s murder, but the corollary holds. On another thread, Mike S. mentioned that he watched the OJ trial (as did I) and that he would have acquitted because the state didn’t make their case. And that’s the sad, sad truth of it. A weak and superficial starstruck judge combined with a team of expert bullshitters (they were excellent at obfuscation) and a prosecution that simply wasn’t up to the job led to a man being technically not guilty but the reality of the science says he did it without reasonable mathematical or scientific doubt. Verdict aside, everyone capable of understanding genetics knows he did it too (even if you figure in new data on false positive matches due to variations in testing procedures, the numbers still say he’s our guy).
I’m pissed off right now. The changes at wordpress never sent me follow up comments on this interesting thread and so I’ve just had to read through and catch up.
Sorry Buddha,
I agree with Jill, Elaine and Bob. If you have sex with a slave it is rape, whether or not the slave wants it and/or consents to it. To me there can be no mitigating circumstances that temper that. Jefferson, who I also admire greatly, was a hypocritical pig in this respect. This should come as no surprise to any of us because there simply aren’t any perfect human beings and great ones often have great flaws.
Dar,
I must say that your comments really are basically attacks upon Western Culture and justification for your own cultural beliefs. While I am no fan of the objectification of women in my culture from a sexual standpoint, I personally believe that there is nothing morally wrong or sexually prurient about the human body. In my youth I was in many situations where there was legal public nudity of both sexes and surprisingly found that despite the overactive hormones of my youth, they were not at all sexual. The reason is that sexual prurience exists in the mind of the beholder.
While your point that different cultures have different mores is a valid one, I must say that these cultural/religious mores are open to criticism, just as you do with “Western” culture. To me the use of the burka is an obscenity and an oppression of women, that says much about the sexual insecurity of males and the need for those cultures to oppress women. While it is a truism that it is important to respect cultural diversity, to withhold judgment about oppressive aspects of a given culture is not only cowardly, but gives license to inhumanity. The practices of some Islamic cultures is to me utterly barbaric, immoral and inhuman. Primarily this is in regard to the treatment of women, but also the enforcement of religious belief. I find it a sad fact of humanity that Islam, which has expressed many noble truths, has morphed in some venues into an instrument of terrible oppression. Sadder still is the need for some of those with religious conviction to fail to understand that by making the will of God into an avenging one, they are blaspheming that which they purport to worship.
Bdabigot,
“I know Slartsafart asked for one on climategate”
You can’t help it can you? no matter how hard you try to appear reasonable, your vitriol just comes out around the edges. Dumb word plays on people’s names is worthy of your 10 year old mentality.
I would like to add something to DAR as well. It isn’t just westerners that object to the burka. Women, and men who are Muslim speak out against it. Cultures aren’t monolithic, nor are religious people> Here’s a short example of someone who disagrees with your “one way”. “I am a Muslim, I am a feminist and I detest the full-body veil, known as a niqab or burqa. It erases women from society and has nothing to do with Islam but everything to do with the hatred for women at the heart of the extremist ideology that preaches it.
We must not sacrifice women at the altar of political correctness or in the name of fighting a growingly powerful right wing that Muslims face in countries where they live as a minority.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/opinion/03iht-edeltahawy.html
Mike,
And I’m not saying you are all right about rape or wrong about rape. Just about human nature and the very definition of rape are logically counter to your assumptions of Sally’s perception.
If there’s no perception of coercion, there’s no rape and without her testimony, we cannot know the specific circumstances.
My goal arguing this was never to win. It was to cast reasonable doubt, which is exactly what I did. That we disagree does not mean that my argument was unreasonable or that others do not agree with me. That you let two crimes meld into one is flawed reasoning. Slaver, yes and a bastard for it. Rapist? Not enough evidence is my reply. What evidence we have looks bad, but it’s not conclusory, only indicative and – worse – presumptive. Without her testimony, there is room for error. Error can lead to injustice. This is why, especially in the days before DNA, it was so very very critical that women testify against their attackers. It’s the simply the best evidence of how they felt about the situation.
My position isn’t that he didn’t rape Sally, even if at times it appears that way. Carefully parsing the details reveal my position is that we don’t have enough evidence to know with conclusive certainty either way. I don’t know about you, but I prefer my arguments come to conclusions based on the best evidence possible, not a supposition no matter how reasonable that supposition may be. Quality of evidence counts.
And that’s my greater point. Someone hurls a label like rapist rather casually for a situation that may have another, non-vile, reasonable explanation. It’s a crime of perception, just not our perception unless we are the victim proper. The charge of rape also damaging to both the accused and the victim albeit for different reasons, but doubly so if unfounded in reality. What if you’re all wrong and she did love him? Would she consider it justice if he were punished for rape? Or would she find you a bunch of meddling bastards? The road to Hell is indeed paved with good intentions. No one can prove I’m wrong about her state of mind any more than you can prove you’re right. Your evidence, while strongly indicative and prejudicial, is incomplete in quality without her thoughts on the matter as her thoughts are a key element of the crime charged. Rapist is a word that should be used carefully.
Clarity and the best evidence possible is a good thing when frail human lives are the subject, be it legal or any other analytical framework. The best evidence of if Sally was raped is to ask her before making presumptions.
There is no flaw in that logic.
You can’t help it can you?
I take my que’s from Buddah. I think it’s funny when he comes up with stuff like BDAtroll. Funny how, Like a freakin clown.
I can’t no matter how hard I try Mike. Maybe I just didn’t get wired right. Short of suicide nothing I can do about it now. The sad part is I get enjoyment from this type of behavior. I think you are an ex behavioral expert, sometimes I wonder if you can help and other times I realize I’m beyond that. I feel as if I’m an addict trying to get the next fix.
I will settle if you’ll all agree that he was a “possible or likely rapist” instead of “a rapist”.
This is my offer.
And I think everyone leaves the table happy.
Buddha: “You can define rape as something it’s not all you want too but you can’t paint me with not following the definition.”
1. Common law rape is generally defined as non-consensual sex with a female PERSON; NOT PROPERTY. Under the law as it existed and was applied in the time of Jefferson, Sally was property. As I said earlier, if you leveraged the entire DOI against Jefferson, you would have had an argument for the court to accept Sally as a person for purposes of prosecution. Whether this would have acted like a Dred Scott decision and helped spark a civil war; I have no idea. Nonetheless, you cannot define Sally as both property and person simultaneously.
Look, diagonally! http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/square/
Buddha: “Her chattel status IS NOT proof of lack of actual consent.” “You claim actual consent is somehow not possible, yet offer no proof relevant to the specific case at hand other than her legal status as property. Either way, it MAY NOT HAVE BEEN RAPE. Yet you both rush to the conclusion she COULD NOT HAVE CONSENTED AS A MATTER OF FACT. Which isn’t the reality of human sexuality.”
2. Per the issue of consent, as lottakatz pointed out earlier, and in accord with the Lockean argument I set forth above, a slave LACKS THE CAPACITY to give any meaningful consent; just as if the victim were too young, mentally defective or intoxicated. IOW, even if Jefferson and Hemmings (treating her as a person in lieu of property) were a veritable Halmark card, it’s still rape. State of mind is irrelevant per status incapacity such as rape and being too young to consent; thus the statutory rape laws. Don’t believe me, pick up your old Crim Law outline from law school and look up the section on consent and see for yourself.
Except troll boy of course. His life is pure misery and nothing makes him happy except sharing his misery. Please, apply any articles or modifiers to the word “troll” you like and I won’t quibble.
*such as being a slave and being too young to consent; thus the statutory rape laws.
DAR,
Sorry, I missed your earlier response to me. We’ve had a few conversations in the past, and it always seems to boil down to you thinking that arguments from antiquity or majority should convince me. They don’t.
I get your point, you don’t like the way (you think) that women dress in America. That’s fine, I don’t really care much about your views on fashion. I do generally care about people making lousy arguments. In this case your argument seems to be that Western women shouldn’t dress the way (you think) they do because it shows off their bodies sexually.
My point was that humans are sexual animals. You have yet to show how women behaving as sexual creatures is a bad thing, until you do I’ll continue to insist that Western Women have no obligation to dress a certain way to keep from offending your or anyone’s sensibilities. I also showed that your language shows an extreme bias against women, while implicitly excusing men, as an example of the double standard that almost all cultures have when it comes to prohibitions on acting sexually.
Buddha: “I will settle if you’ll all agree that he was a “possible or likely rapist” instead of “a rapist”.”
In a court of law back in 1700 there would be no rape since the crime wouldn’t exist; i.e. impossibility of raping one’s property.
In a court of equity, assuming the court was enlightened enough to see Sally as a person, then yes.
A slave cannot consent or withdraw consent per law and the nature of being a slave. A slave may legally be lashed or killed for refusing anything her master demands. Sally Hemings remained a slave as was inventoried as such after Jefferson’s death. Sex with a slave is rape.
Bob,
I think I’ve answered your questions. See above. And yes, I know about consent. I also know that what the law says and how humans actually interact don’t always mesh. Sex laws are one of the prime examples of where theory and reality can be at odds. I’ve stated before that one of my key operating maxims is what Marcus Aurelius said about truth: “I seek only the truth, by which no man was ever harmed.” If truth is your goal, facts and best evidence should come before presumptions, even legal one (good, bad or otherwise). Her lack of valid consent as chattel is a legal presumption and one that could have been modified by Jefferson in ways we do not know for certain. Like you say, she’s chattel. Jefferson could have freed her partially with the same freedom he could have decided to keep the cat in the house or not. Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
And you, my dear Raoul Duke, also know I like to play Devil’s Advocate sometimes just because it’s a hoot. Especially when I’m hitting the ether. Sometimes it’s not the end of the ride that counts. It’s the ride itself.
And let me ask you this, Bob.
When faced with an opponent who is relying on volume, what is the best way to counter? Overwhelming force.
Again, thank you all for a wonderful thread.
To Mike Spindell,
You are mistaken if you think I’ve a problem with nudity, otherwise I’d be spending most of my time attacking traditional tropical cultures where most people dress very little except around the inguinal area, and where women are topless.
The problem is that the modern West isn’t like those cultures, it isn’t a society that treats nudity or much skin exposing indifferently. Rather Western culture still holds the same sexualized views of the human body that it always has (and which other societies still do, such as in the Middle East), it just decided to exploit them openly, largely due to the spread of this extreme hedonistic individualism.
As far as the example of your youth, you didn’t find them sexual because they weren’t meant to be sexual. But when you drive down the street and see a giant billboard of a bikini-clad woman lying down with a beer in her hands (to give and example),that billboard is purposefully meant to be sexual.
As such, I am against such warped standards being applied to others.
In other words, what some Westerners really want to do is to go to Muslims (and others) and tell them in effect: “Look, yyou can continue to keep your views of morality and decency, but you should no longer be allowed to have any public standards that enforce them.”
To Jill,
The problem with your quoted heroinne is that her very use of the word “feminist” shows her not be some indigenous actor who’s opposition to the covering are self-grown, but rather is someone who’s opposition comes from her being fully Westernized, therefore it’s no different than a regular Westerner criticizing the dress.
I don’t dismiss her views, rather I merely point out that she cannot be regarded as a true voice from within.
To Gyges,
I shall repeat what I wrote earlier, that I’ve no problem with that, but don’t force them on those other societies that choose to stick to the standards of modesty that they have always had, and which the West itself once had.
“but you should no longer be allowed to have any public standards that enforce them.”
Dar,
You mistook much of what I wrote. The sexualization of women in advertising and culture in the West is as I stated something I decry.
However, when you refer to enforcing public standards that is where we differ. To me the problem is who gets to set the standards. Historically, across cultures when you have religionists driving the setting of public standards you have tyranny and oppression. “Public
Standards” quickly become religious opinion. While all religions have
religious leaders who are at variance in their beliefs in the particular interpretations, when these beliefs become legal standards it is always the most extreme whose views prevail.
Not all Islamic Religious leaders believe that women should wear burkas and many are tolerant of more freedom for women. However, the examples we see, Saudi Arabia for instance, are regimes oppressive to women to a degree that is morally intolerable to me at least. As I previously stated these beliefs are not only repressive to women, but they exhibit the need for males to paternalistically control them. Beyond the immorality of it is the (to me)stupidity of it because women are every bit the equal of men in all intellectual respects and in general superior to them in their ability to keep the social piece.
Oppressing them has I believe led to the problems that have plagued certain Islamic societies since they are operating without the input of half of their citizenry.
Dar:
you guys need to read some John Locke, here is a sampling:
“Sec. 22. THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule. The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth; nor under the dominion of any will, or restraint of any law, but what that legislative shall enact, according to the trust put in it. Freedom then is not what Sir Robert Filmer tells us, Observations, A. 55. a liberty for every one to do what he lists, to live as he pleases, and not to be tied by any laws: but freedom of men under government is, to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power erected in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, where the rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, arbitrary will of another man: as freedom of nature is, to be under no other restraint but the law of nature.”
He does not say God or religion but nature as in the nature of man which is to live in freedom, with a free will and a free mind.
your boys have a top down rule which is what we would call a dictatorship. We in America like rule from the bottom up with an objective standard of law respecting individual rights. your boys like subjective law.
I’ll take a few half naked women holding glasses of beer if that is the price I have to pay to live in a free society subjected, not by the whim of unelected oracles of God, but by an objective rule of law dedicated to the proposition that all human beings are equal . . . Seems a small price to pay and I don’t have to look at the billboard if I don’t want to.
Are you serious?
Back to the issue of of the way “Western” women dress: I believe all that indecent dressing and temptation started with Eve–who didn’t even live in the “West.” That poor woman really wasn’t aware of the effect that her naked “naughty bits” had on the fellow who resided in the Garden of Eden with her.
A Clerihew of Biblical Proportions
Eve
So naive
In her birthday suit
Tempted Adam with forbidden fruit.
Dar,
Right, back to that. This is the part where I get to repeat myself. If you want to be intellectually honest, you don’t get to use your culture as a shield and a sword. You don’t get to say “my culture’s different then yours, so you have no right to judge it” right after calling women from other cultures whores because of the way they dress (assuming you mean whore as an insult) and expect me and others here not to point out your inconsistencies.
So unless you either stop deflecting and respond to what I actually said (something you completely failed to do), or admit that you’re NOT o.k. with women dressing however they want in the West (if you were, you wouldn’t be calling them whores), I’m done talking to you. I’ve no desire to defend Western Culture, which is the only conversation you seem to want to have.
Elaine,
As always, a poetic gem.
Gyges:
western culture needs no defense against people who pay no respect to individual rights and tyrannize half their populations.
Buddha: “And you, my dear Raoul Duke, also know I like to play Devil’s Advocate sometimes just because it’s a hoot. Especially when I’m hitting the ether. Sometimes it’s not the end of the ride that counts. It’s the ride itself.”
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
Byron,
In Re: Locke
“The liberty of man, in society, is to be under no other legislative power, but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth;”
ON the issue of slavery, the problem with using this quote is that it validates clauses of the constitution that were void ab initio by the very definition of our republic.
Just like a boat is designed and constructed to as to fend off its first and foremost enemy, i.e. water, so to is our constitution FRAMED so as to fight its first and foremost enemy; i.e. tyranny.
Thus on issues such as slavery, we don’t look to legislation or amendments created on mere assent alone. We look to the defining aspects of the framing itself and determine whether any legislation, constitutional text or later amendments contradict the principles of the founding.
Fugitive slave clause; three fifths compromise? Void. Why?
From section 5 (on property) & 18 (on tyranny) respectively:
“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every[one] has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself.”
“AS usurpation is the exercise of power, which another hath a right to; so tyranny is the exercise of power beyond right, which no body can have a right to.”
No state, citizen thereof or the federal government may exercise power beyond right which no one may have a right to; whether by consent of the majority or not. The underlying social compact, forming the hull, if you will, of our republican ‘boat’ so to speak, does not allow it; via legislation by consent or not. The exercise of power over the inalienable right of self ownership is tyranny, and within the framework of our republic, is tantamount to drilling a hole in the bottom of the boat.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
BobEsq:
“but that established, by consent, in the commonwealth”
wasn’t our constitution established by consent? We put ourselves under the protection of the federal & state government by virtue of our consent.
[Since the nature of the constitution is to establish individual rights, it would not allow you to embrace slavery even if you wished to sell yourself to the highest bidder. So we really aren't free at all.] said tongue in cheek.
But actually I was responding to Dar about the control over human liberty that sharia law has and it’s subjective nature.
To Mike Spindell,
The main problem with your argument is that it can be applied to on-religious “secular” societies like the US as well. The laws that are obeyed are also enforced by the few. In fact, they are written by the few.
Now, you may argue that the divine laws that Muslims live under are not really divine because there is no God etc…, but the fact that most believe in the religions, means that they believe in their divinity, which gives the laws certain authority.
By contrast, an American may be a believer in the Democratic Republic, but that doesn’t mean he believes in the specific laws governing it, but still he has no say.
Further, the implications of your views is that there is no such thing as social mores and group/national traditions. What then? On what basis the legal laws are to be based?
To Byron,
Your quote of Locke sort of doesn’t work on me as I don’t agree with its basic premise, namely that only the laws of man are legitimate. This is acceptable to an athiest, but I am no athiest so cannot agree with it.
Nor do I agree with the assumption that only laws by common consent are right, since common consent could be driven by misinformation and prejudice.
Besides, there are nearly no laws today written by common consent. How often do you sit down and read the full text of a new bill passed by Congress?
Finally, I’m not sure who my “boys” are, but whomever they are, what they live under cannot be regarded as a dictatorship, since the laws are inspired or based on divine laws.I suppose you can argue that God is a dictator, but that’s be your opinion and I’d disagree with it as God is above such judgmentalisms.
To Gyges,
I’m not sure what my “culture” is, given that I’m writing this in the middle of Los Angeles. If you can’t put your mind around the idea that someone can defend something without being a part of it or living in it, then you’re right, you’ve no business “talking” to me.
I defend all societies’ rights to their own cultural standards, unlike others here. My problem with the current Western moral standards is that they are contradictory and unnatural and, yes, immoral. Nor is this the way the West’s always been, but rather a recent phenomenon driven by feminism, consumerism, and extreme hedonistic individualism, none of which were the case even a couple fo generations ago, and are still decried by a large segments of the West’s populations.
Dar:
you are subject to man’s laws in the form of a subjective interpretation of the Quran. No one can know the actual will of God. Our Christian Bible has been modified over time, I am guessing the Quran has been as well.
I think God wants man to live in freedom and will take the bad (a diminished cultural morality in your opinion) with the good (a relatively free country). The things that I have read about the Middle East in particular are very disturbing, the authorities are out of control and have a boot across the throat of the citizenry.
When you stone people for adultery you could say there is a bit of an issue with the legal system. That sounds like revenge as contemplated by a deranged teenager rather than justice.
Dar,
You got me, I made an assumption and I apologize.
Let’s make the necessary edits: If you want to be intellectually honest, you don’t get to use your belief system as a shield and a sword. You don’t get to say “my beliefs are different then yours, so you have no right to judge them” right after calling women with other beliefs whores because of the way they dress (assuming you mean whore as an insult) and expect me and others here not to point out the inconsistencies.
Fair enough?
Dar,
As a post script:
Now that I’ve apologized for making assumptions about you (I’m always willing to admit when I’m wrong) I hope you’ll address the core of my comments.
I’m not so easily distracted or embarrassed as you may hope, and the basis of my argument had nothing to do with your location and everything to do with your words.
Dar:
“I defend all societies’ rights to their own cultural standards, unlike others here.”
My societies cultural standard is to kill every non-christian we encounter and eat them. How are you going to defend that?
Your thinking is what allows women to be stoned to death for adultery and people who convert to Christianity or some other religion or no religion at all to be killed. Whatever floats your boat, anything goes, there are no standards except what are culturally acceptable. Tribal rule, mob rule is what you are promoting.
Your statement is ridiculous, not all cultures are equivalent and there must be some standard by which to judge. And as Gyges pointed out above you are being judgemental about American society so you are grossly inconsistent in your application of your own belief system.
Oh and by the way if we suck so badly why do you live here? Maybe it is because you like the fruits on our tree after all, liberty, the ability to have your own opinion, the possibility of making a good deal of money with a little hard work, freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. Little things like that, the fruits of our immoral secular society.
America may not be perfect but we sure beat whatever is in second place by one heck of a lot.
To Gyges,
The core of your argument is non-existent, since you’re side-stepping my main points.
I couldn’t care less what anyone thinks of others’ cultres, but that is different than actually trying to impose one’s views on them.
Further, there is a vast difference between a member of a given society criticizing another society, and criticizing his own. Therefore, assuming you’re an American as well, my criticism of current American culture is not the same as your criticism of a whole other culture.
As for the my use of the term “whore”, I believe it is valid, since that is how they would be described in another time not too long ago when personal moral standards still mattered.
Most of your (and Mike Spindell’s and Byron’s) criticisms of me would me valid if the current state of America’s socila mores was something that was deeply rooted and based on older traditions and values based on religion or geography. IN that case America’s current urban culture would be as valid as any other, and the way youths dress would be no less valid than the way youths in Arabia or the Amazon or Tibet dress.
But that isn’t so. The current state of public behaviour is a quite recent phenomenon, one which is heavily driven by entertainment, and motivated by consumerism and extreme hedonism. Further it is one that is still resisted by countless Americans (and not all of them Bible-thumpers either).
On other words, what you are defending is not so much a real culture (in the historic sense of the word), but rather a fashion, a style, and current that is driven by certain specific engines (feminism, consumerism, extreme secularism, etc…).
I hope I’ve been clear.
That’s pretty funny considering the practice of sacred prostitution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_prostitution And let’s not forget all those wonderful Bacchanalia parties where everyone got really drug and loaded on psychedelics and humped anything that moved. We shouldn’t forget those worshipers of Pan either. Carnivale, or Mardi Gras as they call it in New Orleans, is a response to a repressive Catholic holiday. Nobody EVER gets drunk and naked for that one.
There are a lot off people with really interesting genetics that makes what you say simply wishful thinking nonsense and worship of a past that didn’t exist, dar.
People used to be A LOT naughtier than today and recently I might add. It wasn’t until venereal diseases started going lethal in response to antibiotics and increased risk of exposure to exotic viruses that deforestation creates that people finally started quit humping like dogs. Some of them still haven’t.
There is a difference between sexuality and crassness. Modern culture is certainly more crass than some past cultures. We can now communicate more, faster than any time in human history. Too much bandwidth means a lot of empty to fill up. Not all of man’s creations are gems. Much of it’s just average quality. A lot is just crap. But it’s no more sexual in content than the entertainments let alone the worship practices of the past. I’ve got a planet full of babies to prove it. And a lot of dirty Greek pottery. I don’t mean dusty either.
“got drunk and loaded”
My fingers must know it’s Friday.
As a contrast, John Ashcroft is famous for covering a statute that showed the human body.
The Greeks and Romans used the body as motif. All those naked chunks of marble didn’t pop out of the ground looking like people. Somebody carved them because, gasp, they liked naked people!
It the old fashioned way to make babies, sure, but I like it.
To Byron,
“you are subject to man’s laws in the form of a subjective interpretation of the Quran…”
Not the same thing. No matter the differing interpretations, there are certain underlying assumptions that cannot be changed. For example, I don’t believe that one can spin the Bible to make prostitution righteous. Further, while there are differing interpretations, the faithful are aware that ultimately the laws are divine, so that certain things shouldn’t change through “popular will”.
In your precious Lockean case, there is no such respect for the underlying basis of the laws, since the underlying basis is “popular will” (i.e., popular mood), and while a citizen may have to obey the law for fear of punishment, divine punishment or the immorality of his disobeying it, are non-existent.
In a society where religions plays a role, even if not legally then culturally, a thing that is wrong is wrong. But in a legally and culturally secular society where religions does not inform public behaviour, that which is wrong today can be made right tomorrow if enough people can get enough legislators to change it.
-
“My societies cultural standard is to kill every non-christian we encounter and eat them. How are you going to defend that?”
Stupid example. Supposing that is your beliefs, on what basis are they founded?
Making up beliefs out of nowhere is precisely what is wrong with today’s liberal America.?
-
“Your statement is ridiculous, not all cultures are equivalent and there must be some standard by which to judge.”
And I suppose according to you that global timeless judgement is to be made by the “popularly elected”legislator of the West, right?
-
I shall ignore the monkey nonsense of the rest of your post.
Dar,
So basically, we’re back to appeals to antiquity? Remember what I said about those?
By the way, for a good time why don’t you look and see just how often I’ve criticized another culture on this thread? It seems to me all my criticism has been directed squarely at you and your faulty arguments.
Since we’re just talking in circles at this point, I’m done. Feel free to keep ranting about how Women in America are all whores for letting men look at their bodies.
Gyges–
I gave up my discussion with Dar quite some time ago. Why waste energy trying to discuss a topic with someone whose mind is closed and who thinks of me as lowly female–as one of those “she who must be subjugated” people.
************
I wrote in an earlier comment: “Is it moral to treat women as subservient to men and allow them few freedoms?”
Dar responded: “Purely subjective. You may think they’re treated “subservient”, but they may not feel that way, since unlike you they may not believe in that nonsense about men and women being exactly the same and doing the exact same things in life.”
************
I don’t recall saying anything about men and women being exactly the same. I might have commented that I thought women should be afforded equal rights–which isn’t the same thing.
Anyway, I’m not going to reread all my previous comments to Dar. I have better things to do with my time.
Dar:
“I don’t believe that one can spin the Bible to make prostitution righteous.”
I don’t think most people think prostitution is righteous. It is a terrible state for a woman or man. I don’t see anyone here spinning prostitution as righteous.
But we do try to help people that are down and out, we don’t cut their heads off or stone them. But hey who am I to judge.
To Gyges, Byron, and Elaine M.,
On other words, you are intellectual cowards and losers.
Just what I suspected from three immoral monkeys.
Did someone forget about the Temple Prostitute? I am looking for the same religious exchange…..
Dar,
If you just want to be an insulting retard, you’re picking on the wrong people. They’re much nicer than I am. I’ll be glad to clean your primitive little retrograde fundamentalist clock.
I suspect you know this too since you avoiding the issue of Sacred Prostitution and the history of sexual mores. I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff where the ancient Egyptians considered the bisexual as blessed by the Gods as having the pleasure of two lives. There are many more arrows in that quiver than I loosed in the first volley. You just showed your cards though and – too bad for you – it says “troll”. It’s always open season on trolls. That your trollery surrounds your self-righteous indignation that you can’t control other people’s sex lives? Awww. Boo hoo. It says more about you than your arguments say about reality.
But I have another suggestion that just might cure your troll status. It’s organic and 100% natural.
Get laid.
Pay for it. I’m guessing you’d probably have to pay, but hey, it’d be worth it to get that huge chip off your shoulder about humans having genitalia and sex. Anyone who screams as much about whoring as you do is likely just jealous they can’t get any has been my experience. Psychologists call it “projection” for a reason.
It’s sad when you can’t GIVE it away, but you’ve got such a charming personality, I can’t imagine why no one would want to sleep with you. If any troll around here has shown that they really just need to get laid, it’s you, you uptight sexually repressed half-wit. It’s just what I expected from a trained follower monkey. Got free will? I kinda doubt it. Well, you HAVE it. But having and not using is a lot like not having at all. Kinda like sex. Which your comments indicate you have a problem using as well.
If you just want to be insulting?
I’m your huckleberry, fundie.
Buddha,
Are you lonely and asking Dar out. This is not a dating, mating site. I am sure the Professor can help you in your yearning burning desires of the night.
lol
No, just looking for something to distract me from two projects I’d rather put off until Monday.
I’m a bad monkey.
Dar:
“To Gyges, Byron, and Elaine M.,
On other words, you are intellectual cowards and losers.
Just what I suspected from three immoral monkeys.”
you are not only insulting but not too bright, monkeys are neither moral or immoral, they are amoral. To be moral or immoral one must have free will and the ability to exercise free will. One must also posses a conscience to be able to determine right from wrong.
A monkey may posses limited free will but it is a slave to it’s nature and does not posses a conscience in the sense that humans do. A monkey cannot be moral or immoral and therefore your post makes no sense.
The 3 of us could be immoral but we are not monkeys based on our ability to think and use a computer and communicate higher level concepts.
Since we are trading insults I am reminded of a statement by the Philosopher (I trust even a barbarian such as yourself has read some works of the great man-Aristotle?) which basically stated that nomadic goat herders have no ability to integrate into modern civilization and are thus relegated to roaming the desert tending their camels and goats. Unable to assimilate because of a lack of sophistication of thought.
Apparently what was true 2,000 years ago is still true today. Isn’t it about time to quit herding goats?
The very idea that someone who comes from a society grounded in superstition and tyranny calling anyone a monkey is ridiculous.
DAR:
hey goat herder, you going to answer?
Regards,
Immoral Monkey
Byron,
Personally I knew I wasn’t a monkey because of my lack of tail.
There’s a quote in Shermer’s “The Science of Good and Evil,” (I can’t remember who said it originally) “Free will is a useful fiction.”
Gyges:
Free will is a useful fiction if one wants to remain chained to the vageries of nature.