Liberals out of touch
Reading Leila Seghatoleslami’s letter, I felt compelled to respond. She is absolutely correct. There is a strong media bias in this country.
Its liberalism is obvious to anyone willing to open their eyes and see the truth that those liberal elites have been hiding from us. It is a testament to the glory and grace of our lord and savior that we have modest small town champions of the people such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. They are moral pillars that we can all look up to.
While the ivory tower, atheist, freedom-hating liberals are out getting drugged up and harassing innocent women, Bill and Rush are modern day apostles, telling how things really are, and providing a beacon of truth by speaking most powerfully through their actions.
The liberal spin put on every piece of news is abhorrent to me. Some have even gone so far as to question the mandate that Republicans received in the recent election. If a three percent margin does not constitute a mandate, then I don’t know what does. Liberals need to fall in line and listen to the people. They must work in a bi-partisan way to approve everything on Bush’s agenda. Anything less would be a partisan effort to divide the nation further. Some liberal extremists in the media are now reporting that the death toll in Iraq may be up to 50,000 individuals. How many more Americans have to die before these idealistic hippies see the truth?
On this campus the liberal blinders are everywhere. The mere word “Republican” elicits blind rage from liberals. The College Republicans were justified in pointing that out with their humorous and creative banner. If liberals think a good natured joke pointing out their hypocrisy and self-absorbed anger is hate-mongering, then shame on them. We have heard the good news and can see the way things really are. It is our God-given task as good Christians to help others see the truth.
As long as we keep telling it, maybe a few of these socialist dreamers will come back down to reality. I would like to let the liberals out there know that as foot soldiers of the lord, we care about you. We are filled with love and want to share that love with everyone else. For example, by defending the institution of marriage and protecting homosexuals from themselves, we are opening the doors of understanding, and helping them to realize the plans god has for them. It is only by living a life according to the will of God that we can truly be free, and isn’t freedom what liberalism is all about?
Patrick Brennan
Class of 2005
Sexual choice not hypocrisy
As a woman who once enjoyed sex, I must thank Jim Mack for showing me the error of my ways. In his article, “Today’s feminism is hypocrisy,” Mack proves that a woman could never actually want to have sex on her own.
Indeed, when a woman has casual sex, she automatically objectifies herself and sins against all of woman kind. If a woman wants to be “moral,” her only choices are being a virgin until marriage or a whore. For, of course, all women know that sex is icky and painful, only justified by the miracle of childbirth, from which a woman’s life derives all its meaning.
It goes without saying that it’s the woman’s responsibility, as Mack so rightly states, “to discourage male promiscuity and refuse to be a part of it, thus forcing men to change.” Casual sex could never be a positive, consensual act, but is always a result of male predation on women who stupidly allow themselves to be objectified by pretending to like sex.
I also further realize, thanks to Mack’s brilliant example of Anna Kournikova, that a deviant woman automatically represents modern feminism. Never mind Serena Williams, let alone actual feminist leaders – if one woman uses her looks to get ahead, all women have betrayed the founding mothers of feminism, who weren’t concerned with freedom of choice and suffrage at all, but with “fashions and customs” – as long as that doesn’t involve revealing an ankle.
I agree that woman have abused the freedom granted to them. Mack says women “voluntarily put themselves under burdens nearly identical to those … forced on them in years past,” but I actually think sexual promiscuity is far worse than arranged marriage, un-prosecuted rape, no ability to vote, no access to education and being legally defined as our husband’s property.
In fact, I think men should take back all the rights they so generously gave women, for we obviously can’t handle them. I fear that my past actions may have been “detrimental to the character of women as a whole,” and desperately seek the forgiveness of great paragons of moral values like Jim Mack.
Cat Prueitt
Class of 2006
Regression seems apparent
As a 1974 graduate of UR in chemistry, I was very frustrated to read Jim Mack’s misguided editorial regarding the evolution of feminism. I am disappointed that this is still an issue 30 years after I left the university. One would hope that this type of backwards “thinking” – and I use the term loosely – would have disappeared, particularly among the young and educated. However, it is clear that either critical thinking skills are not being taught or are not taking hold in the minds of certain students. The total lack of logic inherent in this essay is truly staggering. Perhaps a definition of feminism is in order – the idea that women are equal to men in their rights and in their duties. How this simple idea leads to “excess, sex objectification, self-sabotage and backwards values” is certainly not clarified in the essay and is beyond the pale of reasonable thinking. In Mack’s writing, generalizations abound, imprecise thought processes take hold and fallacies triumph. The ideas of causality and temporarily are not even touched upon. As a scientist, I can assure Mack that this less than rigorous thinking would not be tolerated in my field, but I doubt that any other academic area would be eager to claim this style of sophomoric and uncritical thought process.
Catherine L. Troisi, Ph.D.
Class of 1974
Religion ignored in
marriage article
Leland Aldridge’s article failed to mention one of the larger issues surrounding the passing of the same sex marriage constitutional amendment, as well as this year’s election in general.
I was surprised that you didn’t recognize religion, as it clearly plays a substantial role in how Americans from many Southern and Bible Belt states, including my own state of Kentucky, decided to vote on the presidency and specifically on gay marriage.
Yes, of course we know it says in the Bible that men should not lie with other men. In a conservative region of the country that fought to keep its slaves and is obsessed with its own Christianity and color, are we really surprised to find that the majority are members of a largely white Christian political party following an evangelical leader and trying to ban stem cell research, abortion and gay marriage?
It’s true that it is hard to understand how people can use democracy to take away the rights of other people, but for some reason, there are those in this world who believe that murder is illegal, so naturally we should make homosexuality illegal too, because the Bible condemns them both. Democracy’s biggest flaw is that it serves the wants of the majority. And the rest of the country just has to suck it up and deal.
But we shouldn’t fret. Amendments can be changed, and it doesn’t have to take a lifetime (see also prohibition). Presidents don’t stay in office – with a majority in both chambers – forever. But most importantly, in the United States, minorities won’t be the minority forever. So unless a nuclear war breaks out and the world is destroyed before then, I think our generation has an exciting lifetime to look forward to.
Katie Rubin
Class of 2005
Definition not accurate
In response to last week’s “Right Thinking” article, voters don’t “give themselves” mandates. You are not splitting hairs, you are just not making any
sense. By practical definition, a mandate is a command given to a representative by his or her constituents. In most majority-vote situations, a mandate is not decreed unless the elected representative has won by a large margin. However, considering that Bush did not really win in the 2000 election by any reasonable standards, he can claim some sort of directive now.
The word “mandate” has been utterly abused in the post-election. In the past week, this term, along with “political capital,” has been thrown around by the media and by the political (psuedo-)intelligentsia.
To be as clear as possible, Bush does not have a general mandate from the American public to either reform Social Security or simplify the tax code. The people who voted for the president did not vote for him because of Social Security reform or tax simplification. This is very obvious to anyone who read the exit polls. This election was about social conservatism – “moral values” has been getting repetitive – the Iraq war and terrorism and the pervasive effect of the politics of fear.
This is not to say that Bush did not receive a mandate – his stunning re-election is certainly evidence for this. Fifty-nine million of the electorate has given our President these following instructions – protect us from terrorists, uphold strong moral conviction, and, perhaps most salient of all the issues, do not flip flop.
Matthew Ling
Class of 2005
Misinformation about
women’s issues shown
Last week Jim Mack’s piece in the Nov. 11 Campus Times, “Today’s feminism is hypocrisy,” took aim at the failings of “modern feminists” in contrast to the vision of early feminists, such as Susan B. Anthony. As one teaching a course on the impact of feminist thought on contemporary life (The Colloquium in Women’s Studies, WST200), I’ve thought, read and discussed a lot about those early feminists and as well those many feminist scholars and activists on the contemporary scene in the U.S. and throughout the world.
I certainly didn’t recognize the whole of “modern feminism” in Mack’s portrayal of a one-voiced movement that is “wrought with excess, sexual objectification, self-sabotage and backwards values.” In my bleaker moments I might have thought Mack might be referring to contemporary life, or to TV, or to the images that some other countries have of the United States today. Trying flipping on any television set and see if you can find examples of “excess, sexual objectification, self-sabotage and backwards values.” These shows are not brought to you by “modern feminism.” Sorry.
Contemporary feminism has become plural, “feminisms,” to encompass the range of voices and views that comprise at least “Half the Human Experience,” as one psychology textbook calls women’s interests. Men, too, take part in constructing some of these “feminisms” and on this campus form a significant part of those enrolled in women’s studies courses. Because today’s “feminisms” no longer look like Mack’s portrayal of them, because they are diverse, and they walk in league with other important groups, they aren’t as easy to portray as once they were. But to understand them is a rich challenge and as needed as ever, if not more. Jim Mack would be welcome to join the efforts in women’s studies courses – we’d welcome his views in helping to press further a serious understanding of feminisms and these contemporary times.
Mary M. Fox
Clinical associate professor of psychiatry
