Should women be allowed to drive?
It was only eight-five years go, in 1920, when the 19th amendment was passed, allowing women in the US to vote. At least one right-wing extremist politician from Kansas thinks that allowing women to vote was a mistake, and the amendment should be repealed.
Ironic to see a modern country, with modern amenities, fighting over something as basic as driving a car. And then I realize we were in the same place not long ago, and but for the efforts of left-wing extremist groups to balance out the right-wingers, we’d be there today.
OK, so remember how I said ea
OK, so remember how I said earlier that sometimes Necessary Faith isn’t as clear-cut as we think, so we should be respectful even of people with Dangerous Faiths, because those Dangerous Faiths of today might be the Necessary Faiths of tomorrow?
Let me add an addendum: just because our necessary faith (in this case, that women should be allowed to drive) may have the infintessimal chance of being wrong doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be allowed to laugh at the silly people who think otherwise.
So come, friends, enjoy a nice hearty laugh with me at those wacky Saudi Arabians with their ridiculously backward beliefs and antiquated religious dogmas. Ha ha ha ha ha… OK, this would be more funny if there weren’t horrific female opression involved… but hey, they say that laughing at the devil’s the best way to shame him… so ha ha ha ha ha ha….
An interesting paradox: apparently, you can mock someone’s religion and still respect it. Or maybe that’s just the excuse I’ve come up with to allow me to ridicule these wackos.
Arthur Rowan
Brother Katana of Reasoned Discussion Rebel Leader and Designated Masculine Driver for the Unitarian Jihad
I can see it now…
“You can drive, but you can’t look at anyone while you’re driving.”
You know, they want their women in veils and all covered in black supposedly to keep the women faithful, but if every woman looks the same and you can’t see them, I think it keeps the men more faithful. There’s nothing to look at.
That article, if I remember correctly, said that there’s 25 million women, and a third of them have to use public transportation to get where they need to go…with permission to be leaving the house in the first place. So there are a few lucky men who drive bus (since they’re the only ones allowed to drive) driving 8 million women around each day. Those are the men that go home saying, “Allah, I love my job.”
But how do you change a culture like that? I think if they’re wanting to reform, they can’t just drop the bomb and let women drive. It’s got to be a lifelong plan of baby steps. One tiny thing that doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Then a couple years later add some other “freedom” that would then seem like not such a big deal.
I think the only thing those women have got going for them, is they don’t have complex problems wishing they looked like computer airbrushed super models!
As it stands, I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!–
Christy
Who Let Them Out?
Who let them out of the kitchen? Like that state senator from Kansas said, get in the kitchen where you belong.
I don’t foresee the Saudi national women’s soccer team posing a threat at the Olympics.
This is why those countries don’t advance. They’re only using 33% of their population brain power.
Confused in Kansas
Sorry to interject again, but I just followed the link to the antisuffragist State Senator. It’s a she!
I’m sorry, but in what strange world does it make logical sense that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, but SHOULD be allowed to hold public office? That must have really been a bummer for her on election day, since by her own ethics system she wouldn’t even be able to go to the polls to vote for herself.
Arthur Rowan
Brother Katana of Reasoned Discussion Rebel Leader and Registered Voter for the Unitarian Jihad
Irony
She’s a fantastic, walking example of irony, don’t you think?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
14th Amendment / 19th Amendment
The women against the 14th and 19th Amendments believe that it’s a superfluous amendment and are offended that it was added to the Constitution.
If everyone in this country is created equal, then why does there need to be a special amendment that raises women up to equal status. As if they didn’t already have it?
It just goes to show what happens when social values aren’t congruent with legal outlines. I was talking with my sister about this yesteray. She mentioned that in Japan, there are no defamation laws, because family honor is paramount, and speaking negatively to tarnish another family’s reputation is such a societal harmthat no one dares breach this honor. The U.S. was founded by a bunch of slave-punishing, women-abusing white men. Society ruled. We had to put in legal rules to mark the permanent change in society rules when women began getting treated as equal.
Some women are offended by the 14th and 19th Amendment because it says there was a time during which women were inferior.
I’m not backing this psycho horse-beast from Kansas, but just stating some truths behing why some women oppose those Amendments.
I understand the sentiment be
I understand the sentiment behind thinking that the 14th and 19th Amendments are superfluous, but unfortunately there’s nothing that can be done about it now. Why? Because you can’t remove an amendment from the constitution. Ever. They’re set in stone. The best you can do is create another amendment that nullifies the first one.
Take prohibition, for example. Amendment 18 abolished the sale of liquor in the country. But that proved to be so wildly unpopular that they later reversed their decision. But not by removing Amendment 18, by creating 21, whose sole purpose was to repeal Amendement 18. So now we’ve essentially got two contradictory (and therefore pointless) amendments in every copy of the constiution made, wasting paper. Hundreds of trees have died in the Amazon, simply because we couldn’t make up our mind about alcohol. (OK, slight exaggeration, but you see my point, I hope.)
From what I can understand, the opposition to the 14th and 19th amendments is that they’re redundant: such equalities are already guaranteed in the body of the constitution, and adding amendments to clarify only complicates matters. How much more complicated of an issue would it be if we had to introduce yet another Amendment to repeal the 14th and 19th, only not REALLY repeal it because everything in the 14th and 19th would still be guaranteed. It would be like Amendment 21 repealing Amendment 18 but still saying that no liquor could be sold because that’s already contained in the Articles.
Obviously, I’m not comparing women’s suffrage to the sale of liquor, only trying to point out how complicated things could get in the wording. There is no way to simplify things, so we might as well quit while we’re ahead. Save the rain forest, and all that.
For the record, I’m highly in favor of the existence of both Amendments. That’s really swell that we’re level headed enough of a society NOW to recognize the fundamental equality in rights between men and women of all races, but let’s face it: human beings (although quite lovable), are very untrustworthy when it comes to what they believe. I have no guarantee that the tide of public opinion 200 years from now won’t have swayed back to the old “Men rock the party, women should just rock the baby” way of thinking. The more ironclad documents we’ve got preventing us from making such a mistake, the better.
Arthur Rowan
Brother Katana of Reasoned Discussion Rebel Leader and Assistant to Eve Ensler for the Unitarian Jihad
The heart of opposition
You’ve struck at the heart of the opposition which resulted in the original Bill of Rights. The Framers of the Constitution believed that the Constitution was enough, that government would not do anything which it was not instructed to do in the Constitution. Many states, on the other hand, believed that a Magna Carta was needed, to spell out things the government was not allowed to do.
With today’s constant battles over the Bill of Rights, with protesters being forced into “protest zones” far away from the events they are protesting, with extremist groups attempting to subvert government to support their causes, we are more in need of it than ever. The fact that we even have these frequent fights about the Bill of Rights tells me that we’re lucky that, visionary as the Founders were, pragmatic people who understood how men seek to control one another took a standa against ratifying a document which contained no protection of fundamental human rights.
—
Matthew P. Barnson