Thread: Defining an MRA

Quote from dad_savage

The following two points aside I agree with everything in your video, and the whole of it, even that which I do not agree with, is well spoken, articulate, well made and interesting. I enjoyed watching it.

Firstly I disagree with one part; in that the left is not 'owned and operated' by Feminists. The current political representatives of the left are. Obama and his ilk may support Feminism, but they're individuals. I happen to have many liberal attitudes and leftist ideals; that does not make me a feminist. It’s a mistake, to link liberalism and Feminism. It derives from? I think from the fact that Feminism derives from Marxism, and liberalism also takes ideas from Marxism/Socialism, but remember that Feminism is a perversion of Marxism, not Marxism itself. Marxism holds that the political struggle is one of class; this is its most central ideal, Feminism holds that it is one of gender. They’re ideologically incompatible. Modern liberalism is also a perversion because instead of class it concerns itself primarily with race, gender, etc. and has become hostile to orthodoxy (whatever is normal is bad, only diversity is good, etc) so liberal politics may have mutated into something which is closely aligned with feminism and other social problems, and it may be at the root of many ills in society, but that does not mean one must be a conservative in order to combat these things. You reject liberalism because of what modern liberalism represents, but modern conservatives, whom you call neo-cons, are no better however you say these politics must return to their roots. I say this of liberalism; it must become what it was before it was infected with feminist nonsense and divisive policies like political correctness; a political platform devoted to reform and equality, not ‘sham’ equality, huge government, endless welfare, etc. This is as I see it.

Also, secondly, I must ask that you try, please, to keep in mind some of us are not situated so that we can give no thought to social and political approval. I would refute Feminist lies, and do, but not anywhere, not any time. I don’t have that freedom because of the nature of my business and besides the money I earn through it is a more potent way of effecting social change than anything I could ever say or personally achieve without funds in terms of activism.

We are not all that far apart. There are indeed some socially liberal ideas that I don't find any fault with. e.g. using some government funds for those unable to help themselves. But I am afraid that is where it ends.

It’s a mistake, to link liberalism and Feminism. It derives from?

It derives from the fact that left of center politicians have surrounded themselves with feminist icons for along time. Think Al Gore and Marilyn French. No different for Carter, Clinton, or Obama.

It derives from the fact that VAWA and all other insanely feminist legislation I can think of ORIGINATED from the left.

Now, as you saw in the video and may have seen in my other writings, I don't consider the right any more of a solution.

I also have to say that I agree, feminism is a perversion of Marxism, but that hardly makes pure Marxism a good idea. And it is not all perversion. Marxism, just like feminism, seeks to usurp the individuals relationship with the family and exchange it for one with the state. And it is a sure fire step toward globalism, which I vehemently oppose.

I prefer to think that American liberalism isn't rooted in Marxism, but in humanism and anti-elitism. That is fine with me up to the point we get to the state compelled redistribution of wealth. I suppose that makes me a social liberal and political conservative.

So if you say that liberalism return to it's roots, but don't refer to Marxist roots, then I agree with you. Otherwise, not so much.

One think I would like to say though. I have read only a few of your posts on this forum. They are always thoughtful and well articulated. I am thankful for that.

Marxism, just like feminism, seeks to usurp the individuals relationship with the family and exchange it for one with the state. And it is a sure fire step toward globalism, which I vehemently oppose.

I agree with the first point but do not see how it is related to the second in any way more than National Sovereignty is.

I cannot see how anyone can object to Globalism per se. We all live on the same planet and we all trade with and talk to one another. The particular nationalities that we have are accidental as far as individuals are concerned. We do not chose them. Nations themselves are mere political artifacts, somewhet larger than tribes. It is an inevitability that as the world becomes more complex and nations interdependant that a coming together will occur.

I can understand that most nationalities are somewhat eager to retain their identities and so they should, but the extremes of eagerness is simply a form of resentment and jealousy for not being born English.

I advocate for men and boys only, not out of supremacy, but because that is what is needed to bring balance to a culture -LB

Yes this is exactly right and if ever the balance is corrected you will see me moving to a balance, as long as it is secure. Like a seesaw I will be in the middle when the balanced is reestablished. To be in the middle now when the men & boys are high in the air dangling from a noose with their pants pulled down and vultures picking at their eyes is just plain irresponsible. Some are in the middle now so they can look good and be friends with all those at the other side of the seesaw that is squarely on the ground and heavily secure with fat government, fat police, fat lawyers etc. all holding down their end of the seesaw and calling for those on the other end of the seesaw, trying to help men, to get to the midde to be fair. To listen to this mob would be insane. Insane as to try and hold the middle ground when anyone looking at the seesaw can sees it is totally out of balance. Those on their end, that should be in the middle, are not shouted at and get funds for staying put. It's a funny old world and the game people play to sit of the fence are very elaborate.

Generalizing is not blanketing

Very good work, Paul.

“I feel for families that are in trouble in this culture, but the men and boys bear the worst of that burden, so it is them I am concerned about; not marriage, not women or girls as a group, but men and boys only. I know that seeking justice for them will eventually bring the best to everyone, so I care about nothing else.”

Advocating for men and boys is necessary. They've long stood in the dark, unnoticed and ignored. Someone needs to care specifically for men and boys. I don't, however, believe that specifically advocating for men and boys equates not caring about women and girls. As you suggested, the two are mutually tied and irrevocably bound. Advancing the concerns of men and boys advances the concerns for humanity. You can not do anything to either gender without effecting the other, for good or ill.

It's like the whole ridiculous notion of there being a winner in a war between the sexes....even if you win, you lose. There is no victor to be found in conflicts inciting hatred and distrust between men and women. We all lose...society loses.

Anyone who cares about our society, who cares about humanity as a whole and the shape of our world, cares about men and women, boys and girls. Advocating for the unrepresented, forgotten half that is sorely in need of an advocate does not necessarily mean not caring anything about the other half of humanity.....but striving to acquire a balance.

Paul Elam in his video said “I feel for families that are in trouble in this culture, but the men and boys bear the worst of that burden, so it is them I am concerned about; not marriage, not women or girls as a group, but men and boys only. I know that seeking justice for them will eventually bring the best to everyone, so I care about nothing else.”

Quote from Lester Burnham

I advocate for men and boys only, not out of supremacy, but because that is what is needed to bring balance to a culture that runs on female supremacy now, especially with help for males like you. THE MRM IS THE NEEDED BALANCE BECAUSE BALANCE HAS BEEN UNDERMINED BY FEMINISM AND NOW OUTDATED CHIVALRY.

The goal is equalitarian, it is justice and fairness, and I am quite confident that in the 22 videos and forty some odd essays and articles I have written for MND and my site you will not find a single word to contradict that.

I figured your defense would be along these lines, that you advocate for men and boys because men are discriminated against, because the balance is currently against men and men need focused advocacy to level the playing field.

It seems your argument goes a bit further than that though. You seem to be saying that the overall source of social problems in America today is due to discrimination against men and if men were no longer discriminated against then the problems between men and women overall would be much reduced and America’s social problems would be much diminished. In this way, empowering men acts as a kind of cure all where if men are empowered then all other problems dissolve. This then means that empowering men is the overall top priority since it is the disempowerment of men that is the source of all the other problems.

The problem with this way of thinking is that first of all it is too convenient of an excuse for placing the needs of men above the needs of women. Secondly, when dealing with the issue of what power men and women should have there is no simple ideal of equality to aim for that makes sense.

Feminists when they promote the idea that it is only women and girls that matter use exactly the same logic. They claim that women are discriminated against, need protection from the discrimination they face, because they are discriminated against they deserve special advantages and special treatment to overcome the discrimination they face, and furthermore they claim that it is discrimination against women that causes all the worlds problems and if only women were given “equality” then all the worlds problems would be solved.

It is just too easy and too convenient to invent a narrative of the world where your gender is being discriminated against and because your gender is being discriminated against you therefore deserve all different kinds of special treatment and privileges and only the needs of your gender matter. Furthermore, all the world’s problems are caused by discrimination against your gender so empowering your gender is the way to solve all the world’s problems.

Because men and women are different there are 100 different areas of life where men get the better deal and 100 different areas of life where women get the better deal. This is plenty of evidence to support the hypothesis that women are systematically discriminated against and it is plenty of evidence to support the hypothesis that men are systematically discriminated against. Both men and women can play the victim card and then demand “special rights” to “level the playing field”. Of course all feminists want is “equality”, who can be against “equality”? Funny thing is, “equality” is what you as a Men’s Rights Advocate claim to want as well.

So I’m not buying the argument that it is legitimate to place the needs of men above the needs of women in order to “bring balance to a culture that runs on female supremacy” as you put it.

The second problem with your approach of seeking to empower men in order to reestablish some version of equality between men and women is that there is no logical ideal of equality out there for you to achieve. There is no goal or endpoint that makes sense for you to strive for if “equality” is your goal. Men and women are not the same so creating some system or set of cultural values that pretends that men and women are the same makes no sense.

It seems to me that you want to get rid of Chivalry, that you don’t want men to be discriminated against for the purpose of upholding chivalrous values. The purpose of Chivalry is to protect women from the extra vulnerabilities they face being the primary caretakers of children. If you get rid of Chivalry what you are doing is endangering women who are playing their natural role within the family. You may claim that abolishing Chivalry removes discrimination against men and leads to men and women being treated equally, but in reality what it leads to is women being endangered due to the natural gender role they play in society. This means that abolishing Chivalry does not make men and women equal, it makes women endangered leading to women not trusting men and harming relations between the sexes.

Treating men and women the same way is abusive towards women and reflects a mentality that men’s needs are superior to women’s needs. There is no way to create equality between the sexes because men and women are different from each other. Pretending that men and women are the same does not alter the fact that men and women are different. Because the female role is more vulnerable and intrinsically powerless than the male role treating women as if they are the same as men is an abuse towards women.

So the second problem with the idea of empowering men to make them more equal to women is that there is no end state of equality to aim for as the ideal. Men and women are intrinsically different from each other so no artificially imposed concept of equality will meet the needs of both men and women.


Something this discussion about empowering men and boys is making me think of is the idea that men and women are in competition with each other. The whole idea that men and women are in a struggle for power against each other I think is very wrong headed. It seems to me that feminists have the idea that relationships are a competition between men and women and that MRAs think the same way.

You can see the assertion of power as a competition against your romantic partner or you can see the assertion of power as an idealistic expression of your gender role. Power should be thought of in an idealistic way, not in a competitive way.

It seems to me your emphasis of wanting to advocate for the needs of men and boys reflects an attitude on your part that men are in a competition against women. The competition mentality is a selfish mentality while the idealistic mentality is a moral alternative that takes everyone’s needs into account.

That's how it's done!!!!
LB, you're the best.

Because the female role is more vulnerable and intrinsically powerless than the male role....

Somehow, ST, I cannot escape the suspicion that you haven't read a damned word of what anyone else has written since you have been here.

The 'vulnerable' 4% of workplace deaths. The 'powerless' 60% of college graduates. The ones who march on the streets but don't have to march on the battlefields.

ST

You can't be serious. Oh wait, I do take that back. I know you are.

I spend to much time writing to go over every mistake you make. But I will touch on a couple to the more glaring ones. My mission is equal treatment under the law for men. That means fair legal treatment in the home and family, education, workplace etc.

I agree that men and women are not equal, and don't give a rats ass about it. The discrimination against men is overwhelming and abusive. If you care nothing about that then it just makes you morally bankrupt.

Big shock there, eh?

Your implication that I seek special treatment is false, and stoopid.

And this from you:

Treating men and women the same way is abusive towards women and reflects a mentality that men’s needs are superior to women’s needs

Stoopider.

I really don't have time to waste on you. It is like arguing with a feminist, which is exactly what you are though you don't know it.

And your very presence in a forum like this?

Stoopidest

I like that kneel con label - I have met so many of them before they had such a label they are like turkeys promoting Thanks Giving Day and like the Kapos in the Nazi concentration camps promoting and carrying out the Nazi policy of extermination - in the end the Kapos had their turn in the same ovens

the problem nowadays is that feminits and their kneel con henchmen
( er henchppersons) have successfully circumvented fair and objective laws and instituted their bullstwang into statutes and onto men's heads - IMBRA VAWA and others I may not be ken to at this time but working agin men never the less as I type :and

feminits control the "education " of boys and mould their uncritical young minds to the feminit specifications of acceptance of the value and veracity of the feminit platform of gobbledygook



nowadays a wimyn dumps her husband (no fault) legally kidnaps his kids and remits the invoice to him with a legally enforceable order from her Family Court for ongoing payments which renders him as a peonage slave to her whims forever

after she does just about what ever she pleases having no obligations to anyone except her clewless spiteful nose

I liked the video, good stuff.

I don't want to go offending any Americans, but I just don't get the whole left, right wing stuff. I always try to keep up with what's going on in politics, but it seems that in America, the people have their minds made up before the argument, if that makes sense, it's like no matter what happens, you'll always support the left, or the right, but surely there must come a point where you're split?
I don't want a whole education on it, but I hear it all the time, right-wing this, left-wing that, maybe being all the way here in Scotland is why I just don't get it, but it makes no sense to me.

It's suggested in the video that liking Sarah Palin means you're not an MRA, I don't get that either, I can't really see what the connection is.

I'll sit by, confused, and hopefully someone can explain it to me.

On being an MRA, I'm not sure, I like to think I point out and shout whenever I see any kind of mistreatment, not just the mistreatment of males, but it does seem to be the case that males get it in the neck a lot these days, which is why I'm always pointing and shouting about men's mistreatment more than others.
"Men's Rights Activist" is similar to "Feminist" in the way the wording suggests that only a particular gender's needs matter, not that I would be offended at being called an MRA, I just don't like the idea that as an MRA, people may assume, as I do about feminists, that I don't give a rat's arse for anyone who isn't the same as me, because I want everyone to be treated as fairly and as equally as possible.

Well 6ame if you need some Scots to show you the same thing, look no further than here:
http://www.our-scotland.org/

The polarization of the US is because there is something going on there that is special. The US is not yet a dictatorship, like the EU, but could be one very soon as it is well on its way. So the elite must get people into the extreme positions to show that only the bureaucrats can come in and fix things. Divide and conquer is going on, so the media (and people plugged into the MSM) see things in the extreme left-right modal.

In the middle there are the libertarians (the very old world uses the term whigs), and you will find when you listen to them that they want some things from both sides to a reasonable extent, and thus may meet your less extreme comfee zone.

Yet "extremism in the defense of liberaty is no vice" and though I'm a libertarian I see some things in both the left and right extremist sides we lack, that being a fire and a need not to rationalize passiveness or coolly being on the outside looking in. There is nothing cool about watching the world go down and being on the sidelines.

The above forum I have visited many a time and find it filled with what my kin termed lowlander stock. My kin being highlanders I find it a shock to listen to these doolies & sleekit. If invaded these men are unlike to teach anyone to "think again", but are more likely to say fighting solves nothing.

Well that's this teuchter's thoughts.

Great video.. Especially the tradtionalist and chivalrist part

Quote from Percy

I agree with the first point but do not see how it is related to the second in any way more than National Sovereignty is.

I cannot see how anyone can object to Globalism per se. We all live on the same planet and we all trade with and talk to one another. The particular nationalities that we have are accidental as far as individuals are concerned. We do not chose them. Nations themselves are mere political artifacts, somewhet larger than tribes. It is an inevitability that as the world becomes more complex and nations interdependant that a coming together will occur.

I can understand that most nationalities are somewhat eager to retain their identities and so they should, but the extremes of eagerness is simply a form of resentment and jealousy for not being born English.

But let me guess Percy, you'll be among the first to whine about the evils of monpolies in the private sector? The only thing that keeps taxes down is competition between states, the only thing that limits how much of their citizens property governments will atempt to steal is the citizen's ability to go elsewhere. Watched tax harmonization in the EU, which is coming, it is only going to be in one direction, lets face it.

Patriotism, and a population that feels strong sense of belonging to the nation state to which it belongs are more of those things like marriage. Things we will soon get a harsh lesson in the importance of.