Mr T was always my least favourite. Any Faceman GIFs?
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Donāt say I never gave you nothingā¦
Also, these 2 tumblrs are a treasure trove of A-Team gifs:
Edited to add link:
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Iām genuinely dismissive to lots of people (of both genders), movements, political affiliations, philosophies, etc. Enjoy having your problem with that.
Oh, you really got me there. My poor feelings!
The fact is that a reasonable person reading your comments on this thread will think that you wanted to say feminism and menās rights groups were basically the same, you were forced to back off from that position because feminism deals with things like supporting peopleās right not to be harassed and allowing women to vote, and now you are lashing out.
And now you can go on thinking that the world is full of people too stupid to understand you.
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That or several people here have proved Adams quote exactly correct. I wonder how these groups get the reputation they enjoy. Huh, weird. I guess being completely reasonable is lashing out. Well, by all means consider yourself lashed if it floats your boat there.
Soā¦ Youāre just trolling, then?
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The quote under discussion, if I remember correctly, is one that says that men donāt bother talking to women because it makes sense for them not to. So if people are proving that quote correct, that means that the people who disagreed with you are women, and that they disagreed with you because they are women. Hereās rational thinking: āSome people who disagree with me are men and some are women, so there are people who disagree with me.ā Hereās heavily biased thinking: āSome people who disagree with me are women so Scott Adams was right.ā
Here is you being completely reasonable:
"OK, someday you will get around to noticing that while the talking points are different the fundamental issues are the same. "
āyou are well down the path to proving Mr Adams post exactly right.ā
āEnjoy having your problem with that.ā
and, just now: āWell, by all means consider yourself lashed if it floats your boat there.ā
You may have noticed in your life that people stop arguing with you when you say things like this. It is not because you are right , it is because you are emotionally bullying them. You want them to feel frustrated, and then you can say, āWell, they got frustrated and I didnāt, so I won.ā Life is your aloofness competition. But most of us donāt live our lives like we are in Philosophy 101.
Iām sure you imagine me yelling all of this and that Iām angry at you because thinking of other people as more emotional than you is the only way you can think you are right. You werenāt willing to try to identify when sexism ended (when feminism moved from being a fight for legitimate rights like voting to partisan talking points) because you know thatās a losing fight. Instead itās all, āeveryone is emotional about this but me.ā
I would say, āGood luck with that,ā but seriously I hope you have extremely bad luck with that. Entering a conversation merely to say that you are above the fray is both: a) toxic, and b) tautologically false.
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Personally, I donāt think the writings of a comic author should necessarily be interpreted in the worst possible light and then elevated to an ironbound measure of his character, to be proclaimed at every mention of his name forever. But I understand that everybodyās got to make their own judgement, and I canāt fault people for testifying to their beliefs.
My own interactions with Mr. Adams have been uniformly positive; in his correspondence with me he has been unfailingly both amusing and kind, so Iāve chosen a more charitable interpretation. I think heās a very nice guy who has made a career of dark, cynical humor - humor which often reflects appearances so magic-mirror accurately that people mistake it for realism.
Maybe somebody could supply a sort of standard āwe hate Scott Adams because <links>ā post right off the bat whenever heās mentioned, and everybody who feels that way could just hit the ālikeā button, and then everyone could proceed to discuss the post content instead of the content of Mr. Adamsā character? It would be simpler.
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We could have numbers for well-worn arguments like Scott Adams, climate change, libertarians vs society, etcā¦
http://www.joke-archives.com/drinking/barsystem.html
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So, you canāt fault people for testifying to their beliefs, but you donāt think people should get to have an actual discussion about the merits of giving a platform to someone who has openly and non-apologetically said things lots of people judge as dickish? Rather, the discussion you think is important and non-repetitive should get to take place, and the discussion other people think is important and non-repetitive should be stripped down to a token acknowledgement of controversy?
Also, I wish people would stop appealing to the idea that people who have a problem with something said as a joke just ādonāt get itā (āmistake it for realismā). Itās incredibly condescending and largely unfalsifiable.
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Speaking for myself only here ā donāt hate Scott Adams, because I donāt know him. I read and generally enjoy Dilbert, actually. I just dislike being dismissed because Iām the āwrongā gender or that I think there are inequalities in our society that affect me and my daughter that need to be addressed. Sorry if thatās wrong of me. I really donāt think it is, though.
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Iām positive that members of both (or any, there are more than 2) genders feel that same way. Presumably, they arenāt wrong either.
Again, pointing out structural inequalities is not ādismissingā men, itās pointing out inequalities that privilege one group over another. MRA are generally aimed at āputting things rightā in regards to issues of gender relations. As many feminist point out, ending gender discrimination works in favor of both men and womenāit allows men to stay home and be dads without a stigma, for example, as much as it allows women to have career ambitions outside of mother, teacher, nurse. Getting rid of men are stoic/women are emotional stereotypes allows men to have normal emotions and to share and display those, rather than bottling them up in ways that causes them harm. Having an idea that men and women are both human beings allows for more equal and fulfilling relations between heterosexual couplesātrue partnerships that are more likely to last and where one party does not feel aggreived because the other is out working or staying home.
And yes, I realize that there are more than 2 genders, but thanks so much for trying to make me look like an ass by pointing out something that was not pertinent to the discussion. We werenāt talking about how people identify in regards to gender, but two specific groups with particular political agendas.
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Generalist characterization, ugh.
Pretty sure thatās a talking point for many advocates, and not limited to feminism.
That wasnāt my intention. If you feel that you look like an ass, thatās coming from you.
Was the āheterosexual couplesā portion really necessary?
Not saying it isābut our discussion here is about what you say is the similarities between feminists and MRAs, so thatās why Iām saying that these are concerns of feminists. I didnāt say exclusive to feminists.
Glad to hear it, but what was the point of bringing of the variety of gender then? How was it pertinent to our debate about feminists and MRAs?
Was you pointing out the diversity of genders really necessary? You brought up different ways of being, I just wanted to make sure that you understood what exactly I meant. You should also know that I donāt think that feminists are exclusively discussing and arguing about the lives of straight women and men. Given that our discussion is about MRAs and feminists specifically, this does seem relevant, no?
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Also, FYI:
I really donāt see how you can read that line of BS thinking and compare it to mainline feminst thought. I really, really donātā¦
Absolutely. 3rd gender issues belong in any mra / feminism discussion. Limiting the discussion to āhetro couplesā is insensitive, shortsighted, and disenfranchises a large group of people.
You really feel that comment is attacking you, derailing the topic, not pertinent, etc?
And thanks you for the rawstory link, Iāll read it this evening. I do know Marcotte - she can be, her blog and articles areā¦ entertaining, and a powerful voice, but a bit rabid. Lots of invective, lots of passion. Lots of opinions stated as fact, and invective substituted for substantiation. So Iāll be taking it with a grain of salt is all Iām saying here - Iām expecting an opinion / op-ed piece written āno prisoners, if they arenāt with us theyāre against us!ā style.
Edit - OK. Iām going to assume http://prospect.org/article/good-mens-rights-movement-hard-find was the article you intended to bring to the discussion. The Marcotte article is an opinion piece which seems vitriolic to the point of hyperbole - except I think sheās actually sincere. Will move on to the J. Friedman article in a bit.
Edit 2 - So Iāve looked at what youāve shown me. I get it, Elan is a misogyny magnet - and he alone comprises a brutally high percentage of the MRA references and articles I could find. He doesnāt speak for, or lead, me or anyone else who finds credence in the issues Friedman brings up, among others. Elam should probably never speak outside his own home again. Marcotte is great at sweeping, vicious condemnation. And Friedman had the class to include this -
The list of grievances for MRAs is long. It includes the elevated rate of suicide for men, educational discrimination against boys, economic and workplace conditions for men, violence against men, false rape reporting, fathersā rights in custody battles, rates of male imprisonment and prison conditions, and the horrors of war. Many of these issues deserve a thoughtful response and the force of an organized movement for address them. Itās too bad thatās not what menās rights activists are offering.
Now had she touched on societal role issues, switched āMRAsā to āmenā, and not made an overreaching condemnation at the end, weād have a humanistic paragraph allowing for a valid movement - and I did bother to take some time and poke around, not in depth but enough to see if indeed all MRAs were satan spawned assholes out to spread hate and rape. Elanās site appears to have a mix of genuine concerns, misogyny, and bog sewer trollies. The mensrights subreddit (and I make it a point to never, ever visit reddit btw, but as usual reddit has the community size) has a lot more people concerned about the every day double standards, but on the whole (sorted top/alltime/best) the submissions were understandable as were the top comments.
Double standards, misogyny and misandry, negative media stereotypes, all the issues Friedman acknowledged - these issues are not the sole purview of one gender, feminists, or MRAs. Feminist vs MRA - Neither side has a lock on absolutely ruthless hyperbole. Both groups appear to have plenty of plain old folks who want to try and fix the issues, and donāt espouse gender based hatred. Both want equality under the law, and in society.
This would be a good reason for bringing back a threaded comment system. A single thread makes it difficult for a topic to develop in a few directions, IMHO. It would be nice to be able to bypass whole threads dealing with feminists vs. MRAs and whether Scott Adams is a jerk without your own side discussion of the point of the original article being squeezed out. But thatās a whole new controversial topicā¦
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I disagree and thought it was off topic, but if you felt it was part of what we were specifically discussing fair enough. I donāt agree, but fine.
And I think, right there, is the main problem with MRAsā¦ that they take important issues, that we need to address, and make them about blaming women. Most mainline feminist argue that gender inequality, at itās heart, is destructive to men, as well as to women. I have yet to come across MRAs that agree with that, though. Maybe itās because what Iāve seen of them is online and tends toward the stuff Elan is doing. If Iām wrong on that point, please show me evidence of such. For that matter, what rights have (white, straight, cisgendered) men been deprived of, historically or now? Is the attempt to increase the number of women and minorities in public life via affirmative action type programs the same as the historical disenfranchisement of women and minorities, especially given the continued misogyny and racism and homophobia in our culture? Because that seems to be at the core of the MRA.
Sorry for derailingā¦ 
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