I’m all in favor of dipping the pen in battery acid before sitting down to write, but that presumes one has a meaningful argument.

These guys are just mean.

For some reason, this kind of hate site is becoming more prevalent even as semi-mainstream commentators and pols have started proposing repealing the Nineteenth Amendment. Furthermore, the depersonalization of female human beings (a construction of flesh made to give pleasure… Lubricated holes…we haven’t even begun to catalogue the offerings here) goes beyond anything ever publicly mooted in either the Nineteenth Century or most of the Twentieth. Beat up a woman because she has not pleased a man in bed? Makes you wonder what this guy regards as pleasant in bed: frantic compliance with a brute rapist’s demands and then convincingly pretending it was a privilege, perhaps.

I bet anything we get a meteor shower of turds from the manosphere because of this article, too.

Ah, Humor! I must begin this post by admitting that I happen to enjoy ribauld humor–when it’s humorous. This includes some humor that may teeter on the edge of anti-woman. But there are lines that take something from just plain funny to meanspirited and aggressive put-down thinly cloaked in “comedy.” (“Well, it was just a joke! Jeeze — lighten up!” in response to something really pointed — e.g., like making all women wear gags so they can’t speak.)

I’m sure that most of the regular commenters here can recognize that line, and that there are a lot of people who express actual hate messages behind a facade of humor. In most cases, it’s pretty transparent — except to others who hold similar views and who bristle and say, “It was just a joke” if you call them out on it.

But as a feminist, I find myself concerned about the rising tide of the “Patriarchy” religious movement, and all the manifestations we’ve seen in simply the past year of efforts to “rein in” uppity women, particularly those who feel that it is up to them, rather than certain conservative politicians, to control their own bodies. These folks would like to push women back into roles as lesser beings under the authority of men. Although there is some “women-hating” within this movement, I believe that it has more to do with “women fearing,” and in particular, fear of the fact that women are able to create other people with men of their own choosing (the Patriarch’s ultimate fear — that their “woman” chooses to have the baby of a competitor, rather than him).

Women have other “mystical” powers — such as the ability to bleed for several days and then go on about their business. If a man has a wound that continuously bleeds, he typically dies of blood loss.

So to some men, women are pretty darn scary, and their response is to try to control them through religion, laws, economics, humor, etc. And since women are going to college at greater rates than men and also, according to a recent Pew Research study, are more focused on obtaining high-paying careers than men, I would expect male uneasiness about “uppity” women to increase.

What I have been attempting to say here is that meanspirited humor about women is the flipside of efforts by a far different groups of people on the conservative side who would also like to put women in their place, both to control their scary and mysterious sexuality and to eliminate them as possible rivals in the workplace and for economic goods. Ironically, treating women as sexual beings and who must be “kept in their place” by readers and writers of the websites mentioned in this post and the Patriarchy proponents, who clearly fear female sexuality and want to keep women subservient to men in all things (particulary in regard to jobs), are simply different sides of the same coin that is held in the sweaty palms of guys with an unreasonable urge to dominate someone, and women, in particular, to salve their own inadequacies.

Guy Code Inc. was incorporated in North Carolina in May 2008 and was administratively dissolved (for failure to file annual reports) in 2010. The address listed for the company is an apartment, and the registered agent is an attorney, as it often is. The RA doesn’t necessarily have any role except filing or receiving legal documents on the company’s behalf, but it’s worth noting that this is the only company for which this particular attorney has acted as an RA.

There’s also a Guy Code LLC that was incorporated in Washington State in June 2008 and expired in 2010, an interestingly similar timeline. The Seattle address given for this one is also an apartment, presumably the home of one of the three listed “members,” all of whom are men, of course.

Unfortunately, Neanderthal men are alive and well in the 21st century.

Oh my, the attorney listed as the RA for Guy Code Inc. is S. Allen Patterson II, who appears to be the same “guy” who pleaded guilty in 2004 to mortgage fraud charges. According to the Raleigh News & Observer (Aug. 19, 2004), Stafford Allen Patterson was “charged with handling the closings of over 70 fraudulent home sales.”

Not too surprisingly, he was disbarred in 2004, and he isn’t listed as an active attorney by the N.C. State Bar, so he couldn’t have been acting as an attorney in 2008 when Guy Code was incorporated.

Classy. Real classy.

I fully expect NWOSlave and his ilk to arrive and make a spirited defense of ‘Matt’ and ‘Trey.’

(Though I honestly hope that the REAL Matt and Trey issue a Cease and Desist to these jokers for appropriating their names.)

Y come SPLC hates free speech? (Sorry but I’ve always wanted to be a Hatewatch troll.)

C.M., I see you and your Infallible Sleuth Hound are working together just fine.

The truth is most of the target demographic for this crap consists of 25+ neckbeared virgins who want to appear macho online. In fact they produce a lot of this stuff too.

I can’t even comment, honestly, because this crap makes me so angry. I know I TRY to be snarky and all, usually… but I really honestly can’t say anything because this is just so infuriating. I don’t understand these people…

It’s my philosophy that the cure to hatred comes from understanding. Look through another’s eyes, walk in their shoes, whatever cliches you want. But frankly, in this case, I don’t WANT to understand where they’re coming from because these people are so horrible and stupid.

I guess all I can say is that there’s a special place in hell (if it exists) reserved for all those people who find this crap funny or believe these mysogynistic philosophies.

A couple of the photos in the Bitch Slap article appear to be actual victims of violence. I wonder where the photos were found, and I wonder if the victims would approve of their use on the website.

The Patriarchy is not dead. He’s just been taking a very long nap.

This stuff reads unfunny and sophomoric.

Well, the First Amendment gives people the right to display their own stupidity and boorishness, for all to see, ridicule, and avoid.

My hypothesis (putting on my deerstalker hat, Reynardine, and setting my brand-new bloodhound on the trail) about Guy Code Inc./itsguycode.com:

Stafford Allen Patterson was sprung from Federal Correctional Institute Williamsburg (S.C.) in late 2007/early 2008. Guy Code Inc. was incorporated in North Carolina in May 2008 with Patterson as its registered agent. My earlier statement that this was the only incorporation listing him as registered agent was incorrect; he had previously registered about a half-dozen corporations (mostly real estate-related entities formed on his own behalf), so he had experience with this sort of thing, i.e., setting up corporations and bank accounts and legal firewalls.

So let’s surmise that while in federal custody, he and his bunkmates discussed two things: 1. women and 2. ways to make money without doing real or legitimate work. Eureka, let’s create a website that enables ethically impaired, psychologically damaged men to say terrible things about women. Not only will men of that type flock to read such things (thus validating their own neurotic misogyny), they’ll also provide the content. Indeed, there would be no better place to find contributing writers than the correctional system, where many of the “clients” have personal experience of delivering (or receiving) “bitch slaps,” for example.

Now, I won’t speculate about the possible implications of a federal convict (or group of convicts) running a “parody website for people who take their gender too seriously” except to suggest that someone reentering society after four years in prison might have 1. absorbed some bad attitudes and 2. a need to assert his heterosexuality in the worst way.

Voila, It’s Guy Code.

As I said, just a hypothesis, and I’d be delighted to withdraw it if Mr. Patterson – or the real owner of the website, if it isn’t him – would provide information proving it wrong.

Arthur Goldwag,

This is just plain sick! I would hope that “Matt Stone” and “Trey Parker,” are pseudonyms on that site. If not, they’ve participated in something much worse than anything I’ve remembered them doing on South Park.

C.M.: You and that hound are *so damn good!*

Obviously this is way out of line. However I have wondered if good natured ribbing, like between fans of different sports teams, could be beneficial in some ways to discourage obnoxious behavior. As opposed to strict political correctness that often dances around the truth.

Sam, displaying battered women so others can copy the battering is not “good natured ribbing”.

You know I was on here some months before admitting to feminine gender. Some of our initialled writers may indeed be cryptofemales. Now, what man lives, works, and writes so? The rare male who finds a niche writing soupy paperback bodice rippers, and even he does not look over his shoulder for stalkers while walking to the local Kangaroo by broad day for a quart of milk. Think about that.

This and any other site that tries to find humour in violence is far beyond the pale and IMO does not fall under the protection of the First Amendment. Making fun of obnoxious behavior is a great deterrent to that behavior, and PC re naming of bad behavior only encourages more of it.

What the Hell is P.C. renaming of bad behavior? We’re talking about beating up women and displaying the victims’ injuries on the internet so that other men of like kidney can be inspired by them. You’ve either strayed way the Hell off course, or you’re finding humor where nothing’s funny.

Sam Molloy,

Instead of saying “PC”, which is a right wing perjorative for ideologies that differ from their own, could you describe your indignation in other terms? Usually when people complain about PC it’s because they are right wing people who don’t want their stereotypes challenged, and feel really put upon to drop the word “nigger” from their vocabulary. I’m sorry but I really don’t understand your point. We should just go ahead remove all challenge to bigotry, unless it incites violence?

My father beat my mother. After nearly 50 years I can still hear the sound of his fist hitting her face, the sounds of my sister and I crying and trying to get between them as they went at it. Usually it was after a late night argument that filled the home with hate and anger and fear. Time may heal all wounds but it doesn’t take away the scars.

More than once she had two black eyes or, in the parlance of the *expletives voluntarily deleted* in question, “I done tol the bitch twice”. Today he would be arrested, maybe even be in jail. Back then, it was a chuckle with the boys, made all the worse by her apologies for my father’s behaviour.

I guess, in retrospect, that the sad thing was that I was not an anomaly. Other friends had fathers who were worse than mine, by a long shot, and they would arrive at school wearing a look that I would only recognize later in life, the face of someone who had seen too much in combat. Too much shock and too much terror in too little time.

In the manner of a full confession, I like scatological, rude, and juvenile humour as much as the next bloke. Maybe more, but that is beside the point. But anyone who has watched their mother beaten by their father is unlikely to find the “Red Eye Gravy Slap” to be very funny. No mature man would and therein lies the rub.

In exercising their free speech they expose their immaturity and insecurity. Bravado and machismo meant to demonstrate their masculinity but, in reality, showing just the opposite. Pathetic, not funny.

Anyway, apologies for the rant.

PC stands for Politically Correct, as in the SPLC’s suggestion to gently turn urban youth away from their “home language” towards “standard English”. It’s street slang or ghetto jive talk and far more racist to assume they don’t know how to speak correctly. Black people from the old British colonies speak English far “better’n me”.

I wonder how many young men were turned Gorish by the 1960s+ iteration of feminism?

By “Gorish,” I mean the ideology of the Gor series of swordplay and sorcery novels of “John Norman.”

Sam,

I know what PC means. The concept died in the 90s and is only still bantered about by right wingers. I would like to point out that without change in society, by holding back social changes that seek progressive action, what happens is that the status quo is not maintained: it degenerates. So PC called to mind how language influences thought and polity. It served its purpose and the left wing moved on. Unfortunately, just as with those on the right who continually refer to the Democrats one hundred years ago as representative of the present day (avoiding talk of how Republicans opposed civil rights legislation ever since), we continue to get acrimonious and less than helpful commentary from the right about “PC”, as if the term meant more than what it was intended for: to call attention to prejudice, bigotry, and the social distortions present in our society.

Frankly, as you purport to be from a social group that has suffered the worst forms of bigotry, I find it surprising and disappointing that you would join forces with those who obviously care nothing for your human worth or right to express your sexual identity without violent repercussion. If you can hold your head up openly in America today you should at least recognize that “PC” was a significant part of breaking the social fetters of compulsory heterosexuality.

Sam, you have wandered deep into a maze of ignoratio elenchi. Pinkerton, your words make clear to me you did not even exist in the ’60′s, or at least had not yet learned to quit wetting your pants.

Apparently too many of these mysognistic men have been drinking too many Dr. Pepper 10 drinks, in which the commercials are anti-women.

We did it by working hard to prove ourselves equals in a free market . Today 99% of companies have non descrimination policies that include us, while government protections only exist here and there in this country. No government agency has to force or pay companies to hire us or give us equal pay. Is that non PC enough?

Sam, who is this “we”? You got a mouse in your pocket? And they can hire you all you want, that wouldn’t help you jack shot if certain corpse defiler types got hold of you. That is what this is about: violence, and social permission for violence. Now, put Mr. Johnson back where he belongs: we’re not as impressed as you think we are.

Oh, is that was Stonewall was about?

Sam, to borrow a phrase from the 90s (with a twist)…

We’re here, we’re PC, get used to it.

That was a trifle off thread, but in response to the claim that gay people have achieved acceptance only by the liberals’ great social advances in political correctness. I like to think any gains have been legitimately deserved and genuinely felt, not coerced. However we are still targets of hate and need every straight ally we can get.

This sort of thing is totally unacceptable. Too many people experience domestic violence for it to be a suitable subject for humor.

Having said that, i kind of get a feeling that this website primarily appeals to insecure, stupid, and naive teenaged boys – primarily high school students with a few community college students who aspire to be breathtakingly stupid frat guys. You know, the type of people who actually believe that drinking the right beer will make them attractive to women – or upon hearing the news of extreme frat stupidity such as the current news about the Pikes at the University of Tennessee decide to imitate it. Or the type of people who get killed or injured trying to do stupid stunts they see in the media. Basically we are talking about real life Beavis and Buttheads here. No dobut they would be dangerous to teenaged girls and young women if they were not so repulsive.

And aadila, yes. At the time of Stonewall an openly gay person who was not a rocket scientist or closeted movie star could not find a job. After we were de-crazied by the AMA in 1973 we could still only get entry level jobs nobody wanted. Only by many gay people proving they were dependable hard workers have we gained acceptance by the corporate world as a practical not humanitarian gesture. We did have the assistance of positive Hollywood and TV images, like all minorities have, but we have recieved almost no governmental protections like other groups. Now both parties are trying to use us as divisive pawns for their own selfish interests. That’s how I see it, anyway.

Erika, the types you mention, being gullible and insecure, rapidly become dangerous under such influences anyway. They’re the sort who are easily persuaded that the guys who talk like that are “cool”, and that to be accepted by “cool” guys they should slap women around, or lure girls to frat parties, drug them, and then invite all their “cool” frat brothers to pull a train on them. Half a century ago, such influences came only from personal contact or reading certain allegedly “cool” works of mysogyny. Nowadays it spreads like ebola on airplanes.

on another note, i’m guessing that those mysognistic losers have never even been in a five star restraunt or gone on a date with a real live woman.

and the lack of male supremacist bozos showing up to defend this speaks volumes – maybe even the men’s rights idiots realize that advocating for andproviding tips on how to commit domestic violence is beyond the pale.

Of course gay people achieved acceptance in America through liberal activism, Sam. I can prove it:

Here is just a small sampling of the thousands of liberal activists who made it possible for gay people to have anything resembling a normal life in America. The work of each of these individuals is well documented.

Feel free to supply a list of right wing activists, and we’ll go one by one through the lists to see whether or not your argument is defensible. If you’d like I can supply a list of right wing activists who did everything in their power, and still do, to reverse the social gains accomplished by the political left.

Here then are the PC, liberal, pink triangle wearing, rainbow flag waving, gay-as-a-meadowlark, left wing activists, many of who dedicated their lives so that you might enjoy freedom and equality:

Bill Camilo, Michael Botkin, Steve Ginsburg, Robert Lee Ferrell, Jr., Ruth Mahaney, Christine Tayleur, William Struzenberg, Marco Place, Arthur Corbin, Randy Miller, Bob Smith, Diane Hugaert, Randy Burns, Sean Little, Jessica Barshay, Jordy Jones, Gael Sapiro, Paul Russell, Tom Rolfsen, Chal Cochran, Stephen Lowell, Janny MacHarg, Tomas Fabregas, Sheldon Ramsdell, Gerard Koskovich, Tommi Avicolli, Deke Nihilson, Gilbert Block, Ronald Schmidt, Raymond Broshears, David Kessler, Richmond Young, Stanley Hadden, Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Judy Freespirit, and Frank M. Robinson.

Also we should look at some of the left wing organizations which were vital. You can supply your list of right wing groups that helped the gay rights cause, and we can go one by one:

ACT UP, ACT NOW, LABIA, GHOST, Achvah, P.R.I.D.E., the various CAN groups, Transgender Nation, the Gay People’s Unions at universities, Gay Men of Color Commission, Human Rights Commission, Lesbian and Gay Democratic Club, Gay American Indians (GAI), Transgender Political Caucus, Alice B. Toklas Memorial Democratic Club, Community United Against Violence (CUAV), Gay Atheists League of America (GALA), Older Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC), and many, many more.

Bring out your champions from the right, Sam. We shall have ourselves a mondo today.

The only thing the religious fundamentalists did was motivate more support for us. The economic conservatives who run companies love us for our work ethic and hate the government forcing them to use quotas to hire peple that may or may not be as productive. I have worked with plenty of Black people who could do whatever I was doing and more. It is more racist and insulting to say they can’t survive on their own merits. All those gay activists you mention chirp like birds in a tree to each other but the real world is not interested in theory, only performance. The governments follow a mile behind, sniffing the wind for clues about public sentiment. Nobody I know is in love with Romney but I’d rather take my chances in a free society than live in a dilapidated third world Marxist hell hole.

I do not always see eye to eye with Sam Molloy (e.g., we differ regarding the desirability of firearms) however, I think he has taken some unwarranted thumping in this thread.

I believe that in his first post he was discussing the utility of humor in shaming or dissuading people from engaging in certain loathsome behaviors (or that is how I read it). I happen to agree with him there, although clearly this particular website is either dead serious or fails utterly as satire, and is unredeemably gross, insulting, and potentially injurious to women if any of the readers think that violence against women can in anyway be condoned. This is a conclusion that he also states in another post.

In regard to the PC flap, I’m not sure where he was going with the whole “renaming” thing, but is it necessary to beat up on him about it? Also, political correctness is not totally dead nor restricted only to the Right.

I have been working on an environmental justice case, and you should see some of the upper-income, self-described “liberals” dancing around what to call the denizens of a nearby trailer park (they DO realize that “trailer trash” is out-of-bounds) or explaining why lower-income Latinos really DON’T know enough to be concerned about the permitting of a hazardous waste facility, and trying to include them in the dialogue, well, (lots of trim and well-excersized butts shifting anxiously) it would get in the WAY of them being able to get to all of their minimum wage JOBS that the poor things hold (and it’s unfair that they have to work so hard, but that’s another reason why the don’t have time to come to a meeting with our committee) (*cough* more butts shifting).

I guess that I consider P.C. to be anytime people dance around what they really want to say that is likely to be based on assumption rather than any real knowledge, so yes, it still exists and will always exist, and we will always need to address it and clarify what people are REALLY talking about.

As for the extent to which liberal activism has helped support gay rights: of course it has! But I also think that Sam made some very important points in his description of how individuals still had to struggle and face issues of discrimination on a one-to-one basis — because despite all of the advocacy in the world, drama still exists in all of those face-to-face encounters that can build one up or tear one down, but that always leave some sort of mark.

Kudos, Sam, for enduring, because the endurance of many, many unsung heroes is the 90% of the ice berg of social change that you don’t see. Certainly, activism is also extremely important, especially for those of an oppressed group who are relatively isolated and for raising overall public awareness and dispelling myths, but to discount the struggles of an individual is both rude and foolish.

correction: the line from Old School was spoken by Craig Kilborn, not Vince Vaughn.

Reynardine, you’re right of course

i made the mistake on only looking at the micro level of individual relationsips :)

Coral Sea, we used to call those people “front liberals”. The current term for them is “white-wine dribblers”. But the whole business of what Sam may have earned by his own efforts is off topic. The point is whether violence against women, gay people, or any other targeted group can ever be funny, and whether those who object to such humor should be stigmatized as “P.C.” That is why Sam is taking a walloping. He would not be finding it funny if someone were joking about cutting initials in him, tying him to a barbwire fence, and leaving him to expire, a fate which could befall him despite everything he has done on his own merits. Joking about this stuff is the first step to making it acceptable. That is why he is getting a pre-emptive verbal walloping, and, for his own good, deserves it.

Enjoy those red herrings while you can, Sam.

Given the Republicans oppose the U.N. Law of the Sea, they may soon be fished to extinction.

Reynardine — I didn’t get the impression that he was condoning joking about violence. Perhaps I missed one of his posts. As I said, humor has many uses — it can be used as satire to point up the absurdity of some behavior or thought on one end of the continuum, it can be passive-aggressive, or it can be completely aggressive and only barely cloaked as humor as a final dodge for the writer, which is the case we are dealing with regarding this particular website. People need to be able to determine the differences among these originating concepts. As far as I am concerned, Sam did that.

I read his “P.C.” thing as a passing thought on his part. Maybe not the best response, but who responds perfectly all of the time? I guess I am responding to the “piling on” he got, which seemed a bit much, to me, at least. Apparently I am still missing some subtle thing that I should have seen before jumping to his defense.

As for the wine-dribblers (love it!), some of them turn out to be posturing jerks who actually are horribly prejudiced but manage to hide it by hiding in gated communities (or wherever), but some of them — most of them — turn out to be fine, just nervous about working with people who seem different from them, but with whom they usually find they get along with perfectly well, and they later comment that they hadn’t realized that they had held inaccurate positions and were glad they had an opportunity to meet other cool people.

Also, I was moved by Sam’s discussion of the slow slog many Gay and Lesbian people have had to make — even after the APA de-listed them as mentally ill. I can relate to the whole issue of dealing with acceptance “on the ground,” because I am old enough (as are you) to remember what it was like when it was considered perfectly fine to officially pay women less than men, prevail on women to prop up incompetent (but higher paid) men as a matter of course (I know that still goes on, but it was basically institutionalized at one time).

So I liked what he wrote and thought that aadila, in her youthful zeal (and impressively ever-improving researching! — go aadila!), went a bit over the top in her discussion of “P.C.” and how many groups have fought for gay rights. No one in their right mind doesn’t appreciate the work such groups have done and continue to do, but Sam shared something of himself when he wrote about the “on the ground” struggle, and I continue to feel that he deserves some praise for that.

I will certainly be glad to “go away” if my posts are considered to be too off-base and objectionable to the other readers. I certainly have enough else to do with my time.

Thank you for the correction, Kristen. I confess I didn’t think that actor looked like Vince Vaughn when I watched the You Tube of the scene that the site’s creators posted, but I took them at their word that those lines were his. The site’s art director attributes them to Vince Vaughn too and says that the logo features his likeness. It teaches me a lesson about taking anything for granted– and it’s another sign that these guys aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

I always wonder ; in reading things of this sort ; if these men would be as amused if it were their daughters who were being slapped / beaten . Or their sisters . Or their mothers . As the saying goes – it stops being funny when it starts being you . . .

OK, Sam, what exactly does this mean? “Nobody I know is in love with Romney but I’d rather take my chances in a free society than live in a dilapidated third world Marxist hell hole.”

A vote for Romney is a vote for “freedom”? I’ve often wondered about the cognitive dissonance of Log Cabin Republicans, maybe you can help us out on that one.

I wasn’t going to comment on this, but your free market explanation doesn’t really square with the facts on the ground. While it is true that there is no Federal legislation regarding workplace discrimination based on orientation, that is not to say that no government agencies do not prohibit that.

From NOLO:
State laws. Almost half the states and the District of Columbia have laws that currently prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in private employment: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. Some of these states also specifically prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. (In addition, a handful of states have laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in public workplaces only.)

If you are a private employer and you operate your business in a state, county, or city with a law or ordinance prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, you must follow that law despite the fact that there is no federal law in place.”

My point is that, yes there was government intervention in many places and the high percentage of large corporations who have built this into their HR policies may be the simple recognition that Federal regulations on this matter are forthcoming. The assertion that many corporations prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation because LGBT employees were the model minority simply doesn’t square with the facts on the ground.

I suspect that the pseudonymous authors of this trash are paid by corporate right-wingers to intimidate women. The 1% don’t care what tactics they use. They just want to recruit empty-headed misogynists to “keep women in their place.” You can’t do much about the empty heads except put them in jail if they go too far. But we can do something about their sponsors, which is to elect women to office and expose their detractors to merciless criticism.

Thanks Coral. Lighten up Rey I detest violence and don’t find it funny. I have to get off here now and call Pueblo Colorado to ask the Federal Government if it’s safe to text and drive.

Meanwhile in Rogers, Arkansas, police are searching for a suspect in two unprovoked blowgun attacks on young women who were shot with darts…

Gregory’s observation calls to mind that without decades of activism, corporate America would not have shifted from keeping gays out of the public eye for fear of limiting cash flow, to allowing gays in the public eye for fear of limiting cash flow. If any minority group indeed has a chance to “prove” economic viability today, it was not without first battering down the iron gate of exclusion through activism.

I think it would be a triumph of hope over experience to think that the vast majority of companies who after decades of activists walking into a public firestorm, have now got on board with Gay, Inc., did so out of any special consideration for human dignity. They did so because of fear of losing business. Why? Because the left mobilized and made it happen.

Another factor not considered here is that homosexuals are not necessarily visible in their sexual preference, whereas other groups wear their social status on their skin. My guess is that even today, a gay white male is going to have a better chance getting a job than a black lesbian female with the same skills.

Nor do gays necessarily suffer the generational effects of poverty, segregation, and institutional racism, whose effects can be evidenced by the widely disparate social indicators vis-a-vis white males over many decades. Are white males just harder workers, Sam? Or do they get more chances?

No one is asking you to go away, Coral Sea. Meanwhile, Sam, it is Friday, and I guarantee you have the Gold Pickayune in the bag, with which you can eat your tasty Red Herring bits.

CoralSea, your perspective is always appreciated :)

However, i still have to say that Sam is a total fool in his misplaced faith in free markets to eliminate discimination. It has been illegal for employers to discriminate based upon race for almost 50 years yet there is still a whole lot of documeted discrimination against racial minorities – not just in small business, but in some of the largest household name corporations in the United States.

Gender discrimination, sexual harassment, etc. has been illegal for almost 40 years – long before i was born, yet gender discrimination is still pervasive in many industries (like law – again, i point out that any legal job which allows an attorney to have a life outside of the workplace is called a “mommy tract” job and is seen as a dead end position (and some of the most serious instances of quid pro quo sexual harassment and discrimination has been discovered in large law firms). Ask Lucy Ledbetter about how fair Goodyear was towards women even with laws prohibiting discrimination.

The fact is that the free market bozos like John Stoessel and Ron and Rand Paul who try to claim that corporations will not discriminate based upon race – that most of the eating places where i am from would not still have “Whites Only” signs out front if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are repealed are complete idiots.

Workplace safety laws began about 100 years ago, let people are still maimed and killed at work due to unsafe conditions because the corporations know it cost less to pay an injury claim and even governmental fines than it does to be safe in the first place. same with unsafe consumer products – again, there are century old laws that the free market would totally ignore because it is cheaper to simply pay injury settlements than to fix the known problem in the first place. If you want some classic examples, look up Ford Pinto and McDonnell-Douglas DC-10. Both were knowingly released by large corproations In both cases, the fix was relatively cheap. Of course, the Republicans want to bring about “tort reform” which would give corporations free reign to sale deadly products without fear of legal liability.

Basically, Sam your precious free market means you are depending upon the goodwill of corporations who only care about making as much money as posible regardless of who they hurt for workplace and consumer safety and preventing discrimination, Anyone who thinks that will result in anything but extreme discrimination against minorities, women, and homosexuals – as well as millions of preventable deaths is delusional.

The only freedom that the Republicans care about is the freedom of religious extremists who are opposed to non-procreative sex, believe that companies should be able to fire working mothers – or even young women who could potnentially become pregnant because a woman’s place is in the home with the children, and wish to dictate what can be taught in public schools. And also the freedom of billionaires and large corporations to pay no taxes or a lower effective tax rate than an average working class family. Some freedom there. Unregulated free enterprise is great if you are a John D. Rockefeller, Jay Gould, J.P. Morgan, or Andrew Carnegie. It absolutely sucks if you aren’t..

Erika, your platinum Sharkie is awarded now.

Coral Sea, this may not be your only award this week, but your freshly-baked Sweet Cherrity pie will make everything else you swallow that much sweeter.

May all beings be happy and free from suffering.

thanks reynardine. My virtual charm bracelet may well run out of room if i keep winning those things – my poor sea turtles are getting pushed out.

if only my real charm bracelet had the same problem of too many platium sharks ;)

I’m back for a bit. I can factually address two points mentioned by Erika. The Ford Pinto used the weight saving trick of a drop in gas tank, as in the gas tank is alo the trunk floor. Just like about a million Mustangs and Mavericks. If you have a classic Mustang it is recommended to get a steel partition for thr back of the rear seat to replace the factory cardboard, in caes of a large rear end crash. I don’t know why it was suddenly discovered with the Pinto. The DC 10 service manual described removing the jet engines a safe way, removing the aluminum mounts separately, but to save time mechanics would R&R them with the mounts already installed, and cracked the mounts wrestling the holes to line up with a forklift. They should have been idiot proofed better but the shop management was at fault, not the designers. I agree that pure “Let the buyer beware” is bad, but a government designed car would be pretty bad too. A government designed airplane could not even fly.

Sam, you are very young. Before the privatization thing was the rage, the government did indeed design both aircraft and spacecraft that flew. It took Howard Hughes to design one that wouldn’t.

Gregory, proving whether Corporate or Government protections came first is difficult. Now that public opinion is turning in our favor, both want credit. Corporations are loathe to put protections in writing that could be used against them, but It’s been my personal experience that actual job acceptance predates all employee manuals and government legislation except for isolated incidents. In the same vein, Blacks and Whites were building cars together in Detroit way before the 1964 Civil Rights Act simply because it made good business sense to do so. Today it is hard to find a company that does not mention equality for us. Blue Bunny Ice Cream in Iowa is one, owned by old whats-his-name, that doo doo head. You can however still be fired in 34 states simply for coming out as gay.

Sam,

The example of Brazilian state-owned company Embraer proves you wrong that government cannot successfully design aircraft. Did you know that since the 1980s Embraer was the sole subcontractor for the
design and production of outboard flaps for the McDonnell Douglas MD-11, and production of the tail fin and wing tips for the Boeing 777? The company had a long and very successful history of design for decades before it was privatized.

By the way, returning to original topic of “socialist hellholes”, I think it is also worth mentioning that socialism in Brazil led to world recognized programs for best practice in management of AIDS. They did so by breaking patents from pharmaceutical companies who, left to the “free” market, would have happily profitted off human misery. The free treatment, free condoms, and free needle exchanges led to drastically reduced transmission numbers. The government also aggressively led public awareness campaigns while the U.S. was still twiddling its thumbs.

How often right wing stereotypes fall when confronted with facts about socialism…

As an afterthought, I would even go so far to suggest that your fears, Sam, about the incompetence of government may have a lot to do with the _American_ government, which is firmly in the pocket of corporate America. Why don’t we just abolish the vote and go directly to a politbureau of CEOs?

Brazil does a lot of things right, and Aids services is one. I honestly cannot converse about their aircraft industry, but the cars are made by private companies.Their slums cannot possibly be the product of a Socialist Utopia as everyone would surely have gold faucets and a swimming pool if they were.

Somehow, Sam, you have managed to take a thread on a serious topic and make it all about yourself and your many virtues, wherefore I leave you your very own Hall of Mirrors. Please try not to be too fierce a rival for your own affections.

Rey, thanks. I know history that predates me at least about some things. Our planes are built by contractors to Government performance wish lists and are better. The Supermarine Spitfire, Me109 , North American P51 and Mitsubishi Zero were also built that way. Russian and Red Chinese airliners are copies of ours and Migs only fly because the engine is so big it will lift a brick apartment house, which is about what they weigh. Their avionics were metal vacuum tubes instead of transistors until like last week. That brilliant strategy was due to some Vodka soaked Commisar insisted they be impervious to the Electromagnetic Pulse of a nuclear bomb blast. Our new F-22 Raptor makes everything else, even a French Mirage, look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

To all:

Here’s a hypothetical situation (the names have been changed to protect the guilty as is required by “god’s law”), based upon true events:

What if you knew of a woman, someone you have known for 27 years, someone you have seen abused by her husband for all of that time unmercifully with “covert” threats of later physical abuse (“pretend” slapping, poking, grabbing and being pulled away if she speaks her mind, etc..), constant verbal abuse in the form of “You’re Stupid!”… “You’re too Stupid to understand!”… “Shut Up! You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About!”…. and all of the other manifestations of verbal ridicule and dehumanizing that a man does to a woman who he abuses?

What if you had seen her go from a gregarious, outgoing, fun person to one who apologized for the slightest thing, one who was made by her husband to “admit” that she was: “Too stupid to talk.”, “I’m dumb.” and would say things like “You’re right, I’m stupid.” to him and other signs of repeated verbal and emotional abuse every time that you have seen it?

Let’s say that this woman had been admitted for major hospitalizations with fits and seizures by doctors in two different states in the spring of 2011. These fits were life threatening, and were causing catatonic states in this woman that required severe life saving procedures and, now, she was on physician prescribed medication for these life threatening seizures, and probably will be for the rest of her life.

For those of you that have never seen the miles of footage after WWI of “Shell Shock” victims, or understand anything about severe PTSD, I might suggest that you look at some of those reels and do some research.

What if you had again seen her husband’s constant verbal abuse last summer (2011), covert physical threats, and related abuses… seen/heard her being abused and then suddenly fall into one of those fits and start drooling, shaking, eyes rolling into her head, etc. while her husband stands above her and YELLS: “What’s Wrong With YOU!”, and “Why Are You Doing This To ME?”, “What’s Wrong With Your Brain?!”, and other similar at the top of his very considerable voice?

What if you had heard him saying that her doctors “Don’t know what they’re talking about.” and he admitted to keeping her medications from her, cutting her prescribed dosages, and “prescribing” his own dosages or getting other meds from somewhere else that were “supposed to do the same thing” but were not prescribed?

What if you knew that interfering with the prescriptions of another under a doctor’s care was a Felony, and could very well end her life?

What if you reported this to the authorities, the Department of Human Services on Sept. 9, 2011 because you had had enough of seeing his abuse of this woman, BUT, apparently, nothing was done?
I do happen to know that they have a legal duty to investigate such within 24 hours.

What if you talked with a man at a local convenience store recently (July 3, 2012), an acquaintance of theirs that has admitted repeatedly witnessing the same abuses, heard the same admissions of taking her meds and playing “doctor” because he “believes” that the doctors are “just in it for the money” and that he is more qualified to determine her prescription dosages or whether she needs her medications or not?

What if, due to personal stalking in this area (automatic/semi-automatic gunfire at night, destroyed property, on-line stalking, phone threats, etc..) you always carried a digital recorder, and a digital camera with you (in case of verbal assault, and to protect myself from false accusations by locals), and you got this person admitting these things: that this man was still abusing her, still keeping her meds from her and changing her dosages, etc.. on record?

By the way, in this state it is legal to record conversations in public places if not to be used for tortuous purposes: otherwise it’s a two party state in which consent for recording must be obtained by both parties.

What would you do, knowing that someone’s life or health was in jeopardy due to the manipulations of an abuser, and having in your possession a conformation from another individual to that effect?

Should it just be ignored?
Should this woman be allowed to suffer or die because her husband thinks he knows more about her “condition” than licensed physicians in two different states?

What if she dies, or ends up in a severely deranged or catatonic state similar to Terry Schaivo, and others that you know are hiding, or ignoring the abuses of that woman, that you reported it, and again, apparently nothing was done?

What would you do?

Sam,
Corporate HR policies are in place to largely limit liability to lawsuits, particularly in the area of discriminatory practices. They are not written out of largesse, as you seem to be suggesting. Of course, your opinion might be different if you worked in one of those 34 states that you mentioned.

Good luck to you, anyway, because it really sounds like you are going to need it.

Sam, it wasn’t the engines which led the DC-10 to make tort law history, it was the cargo doors which were designed in a knowingly deadly manner solely to increase corporate profits.

And that is just one example. There are hundreds of others.

And under a truly free market system, cars would be much more primative and still be playthings for the rich and airplanes would be much more primative and likely even more dangerous as 19th century railroads. Who do you think built all of those roads and bridges? Who do you think pays for the air traffic control system, all of that radar and weather detection technology, airports, etc.? In both cases, it is the government through tax revenue. There are a few private toll roads but they are expensive.

As far as what unregulated capitalism really looks return to the 19th Century railroads which were deadly (see also coalmines of the same period). There was no governmental regulation of the working conditions of the railroads (and no unions either) and about the only requirement in corporate law was that the corporation be registered. Thanks to common law rules regarding the duty of common carriers to provide safe passage to their paid customers (passengers and freight) there was a bit more safety provided to passengers thanks to tort law. But there was absolutely no protection to workers thanks to the common law rules of assumption of the risk, the common servant doctrine, and contributory negligence. Between those doctrines railroads had absolutely no incentive to provide safe working conditions because the workers who were killed or maimed working there had no legal recourse (in part because the railroads knew that the workers had no legal recourse and that people were desperate for any kind of work they could do things like have brakemen ride on top of the cars on fast moving trains to be ready to pull the brakes in case of an emergency – the job of brakeman was so dangerous that killed or maimed brakemen assumed the risk so their widows get nothing). The common servant doctrine which holds that if you are a worker and another worker is negligent which leads to your injury or death you get nothing (example you are an engineer on one train and you are given a clear signal but there is another train coming on you and you are killed, your widow gets nothing because it was the negligence of a different railroad workers).

The railroads ultimately became so deadly that first workers started to organize in unions. The earliest significant strike was the Railroad Strike of 1877 which almost turned into a revolution until the feds sent in the army. The Pullman Strike is also well known in labor history but that was more a manufacturing strike. Naturally unions led to the Poplist and Progressive movements. Ultimately, railroad workers organized and that provided them some more power. And Congress finally noticed the carnage which was going on and stepped in and passed the world’s first worker’s compensation statute the Federal Employees Liability Act in 1906. FELA revolutionized tort law by abolishing the common servant doctrine, introducing comparative negligence, and removing the defense of assumption of the risk in employment cases. It was followed by the Jones Act for Seamen in 1920 and eventually many states turned towards comparative negligence.

It is notable that at the same time that the first inkings of worker safety started was at the same time that the first consumer protection laws (the Pure Food and Drug Act i believe also came out in 1906). There was also a revolution in corporate law at the time – remember in the 19th Century, outright fraud and theft was basically legal in the selling of securities. The rule was caveat emptor. That is why the era was known as the robber baron era. Outright theives like Jay Gould flourished. And government corruption was rampant (most famously was the Credit Mobilier scandal under the Grant administration). Remember that was before direct election of senators so people could actually bribe state legislatures to become senators. There was essentially no oversight over anything at the time – and the results were exactly what you’d expect – a few people became ultra rich, most people became extremely poor, government was a bad joke, people were killed and maimed at appalling rates, children were working in factories, and eventually the common people got mad as hell and decided to not take it anymore.

In fact, everything which Karl Marx predicted would happen through unchecked capitalism occurred in the U.S. between the Civil War and the New Deal – yes, that even includes riots, general strikes, and near revolutions. In fact, contrary to what idiots like Glenn Beck try to claim, the Progressive Movement and the New Deal reforms saved capitalism. Without them, the U.S. probably would have become a fascist government in the 1930s (there was a creditible plot backed by some of the richest men in America to overthrow FDR and install a fascist regime in 1933 which only failed because the right wing General Smedly Butler they tried to recruit was a patriotic American who reported it to Congress – and incidentially, none of the plotters were ever charged with anything even after they threw monkey wrenches into American war production during World War II while arming Hitler.)

So that is why “free market” solutions do not work and why no one really wants a true free market. When left to their own devices a true free market would destroy itself.

Note (and this is the legal theory portion – and yes, my dream job is to be Professor Erika) that some very smart people in the Law and Economics theory – most notably Judge Richard Posner – make an argument that government regulation should be secondary to tort law. This is a very good theory – and its notable that even they argue there should still be vigorously enforced laws such as the Clayton Act (antitrust from around 1914 – passed to improve the Sherman Antitrust Act from 1890) because the free market alone needs some help. Anyway, the theory here is that [in theory] all of the protection you need for workplace safety and consumer protection comes from tort law. Thus, workers will be safe because the company will take all cost effective safety percautions to avoid negligence law suits (oh, i suppose i need to mention that based upon an opinion by Judge Learned Hand in U.S. v. Carroll Towing the basis of an economic basis for law arose – in that case, Carroll Towing had a tugboat with no radio and the barge carrying cargo owned by the U.S. government sunk in a storm. The towing company argued that there was no regulation requiring tow boats to have radios so they were not negligent to not have one. Judge Hand rejected that saying effectively that radios are really cheap and the consequences of not having a radio to learn about approaching storms (loss of life and cargo) are severe so it is negligent to not have one. Of course, the fact that the U.S. has an entire army of attorneys and more resources than Carroll Towing should be apparent and noted). Consumer products, airplanes, cars, etc. will all be safe for the same reason – companies will make them safe because of the risk of law suits. Thus, the deterrence factor of tort law will deter corporate misconduct and negligence so there is no reason for the government to regulate safety because tort law will do it. Its a very nice theory. It really is – except for one thing:

workers and consumers do not have the same level of legal resources and access to attorneys that corporations do. Thus, it may work fine in the shipping context (which the origins of the theory in U.S. v. Carroll Towing were) and other cases where it would be a suit between large corporations. But it doesn’t work for individual with corporation. The corporations – and insurance companies know that consumers will often times not even bother to pursue claims because they aren’t worth it.

Tort law also only works perspectively – yes, McDonnel Douglas had to pay out millions in liability losses for their dangerous cargo doors but only after more than 300 people died in a plane crash.

The tort law solution further collapses because even with the deck stacked in their favor, the corporations and insurance companies through what is called “tort reform” want to completely destroy tort law as a regulatory means. Thus, while in theory a tort law regulated economy (which is actually a “free market” solution, but don’t expect the “free market” cheerleaders outside of the Law and Economics movement to admit that) sounds nice in theory, it won’t work in practice.

As far as discrimination, Judge Posner the leader of Law and Economics theory supports anti-discrimination laws. Other Law and Economic guys such as Epstein oppose them as being unneeded for the argument that Sam is making – that it is not in a rational businesses interest to discriminate against potential workers and customers.

That simply ignores that people are not rational. Lester Maddox closed down a highly successful business and became an international embarassment to the state of Georgia as Governor rather than serving black people. That was not rational behavior because many other businesses found out that openly serving blacks would not destroy their business afterall. Of course, it took a governmental mandate for people to make that discovery. Without it, there would still be “Whites Only” signs up in many businesses throughout the country. It also took governmental enforcement – and some international incidents where ambassadors to the United Nations and U.N. from African countries were denied services at Denny’s service plazas – to actually achieve desegregation even in states with anti-discrimination laws (the first civil rights sit ins actually took place in Chicago to get the state of Illinois to actually enforce its anti-discrimination laws). Denying that is pure delusion.

Erika, you not only bagged another big, valuable Sharkie, you definitely deserve a professorship.

Sam, go disport yourself in your new Hall of Mirrors, where you can admire your many excellences without any input whatever from your conspecifics. But since mirrors tend to be made out of glass, hurry up before the tread of Ruslan’s Seven-League Bronze Baby Shoes screws things up.

MRJ: You are describing a very serious situation indeed. I don’t know your relationship to the victim. Contact an advocacy group and, with or without their aid, take your evidence to the ADA/ASA. Keep a copy of said evidence. If the victim dies, take it to the ADA/ASA again.

If the victim is still cogent next time you talk to her, intervene her as vigorously as you can, even to the point of presenting her with a packed overnight bag and putting her on a Greyhound to out-of-state friends or relatives, and never forget that women who are actually leaving, as well as both men and women who aid them, are at heightened risk of lethal violence..

MRJ, I do not know what state you are in, but recordings made when someone strays into field while you are lawfully recording something else, and recordings made by defective answering machines/buttcalls, are usually admissible in even the stricter jurisdictions. Don’t stretch credulity, though.

If this is a 27 year marriage, there may be grown children with standing to intervene.

“Their slums cannot possibly be the product of a Socialist Utopia as everyone would surely have gold faucets and a swimming pool if they were.”

Sam pretty much any country in Latin America has shantytowns, as do probably most countries affected by European colonialism. Even the U.S. has its extreme poverty…all the more sign that capitalism has failed to take care of its own.

Now, since you brought it up, would you like to discuss how U.S. corporations such as United Fruit Company and World Bank (i.e. U.S.), backed mega-development loans, protectionism and meaningless political phytosanitary barriers have contributed to the economic distortions in Latin America?

Oh that’s right…bankrupting Latin America was necessary in order to preserve freedom and free markets for misguided socialists who don’t know what’s good for their own countries.

Damn straight, Aadila. And I heartily recommend “The Shock Doctrine”, by Naomi Klein.

We have, however, once more permitted Sam to derail this thread and perorate on how he made it on his own wonderful merits, because he is a gay John Galt.

Reynardine, thanks. If only the law schools recognized my as you do :)

Meanwhile, i’m done trying to educate Sam who refuted his own argument himself way better than anyone else could have by citing military aviation as one of the wonders of the free market and private enterprise. According to people like Sam, we should simply ignore the billions of dollars of big government spending on basic scientific research and defense contracts.

But this is all relatively unimportant – MRJ has pointed out what is really important here – the reality of domestic violence and mysogny against women..

To add-on to Erika’s brilliant exigesis on the perils of deregulation and the muddled thinking that goes on behind the neo-liberal model:

Those who claim the United States is not a socialist country are forgetting that our state is directly responsible for the world’s largest piece of global policing. The money comes straight out of worker’s pockets and into the vast machine of state-run enterprise.

Yet another Republican hypocrisy debunked…nickel and dime the American people over food stamps, but stick your hands in our pockets to make the Mig look like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

bad editin :(

radiant personality and intelligence should be after my in the first sentence :)

OK , back on thread. MJR, all states have Adult Protective Services with social workers well trained to deal with any situation. You should contact APS and let them handle it. They are also equipped to deal with the fact that after 27 years, and I don’t mean she is at fault, this situation has become her norm and she will be as reluctant to step out into the unknown as he would be to accept their counsel. In fact, were he put in a prison far away from her, as he should be, without intense de programming she would probably end up in an identical situation almost immediately.

Rey,

Thanks for the suggested bibliography. I might add Eduardo Galeano’s “Open Veins of Latin America” and Hernando de Soto’s “The Mystery of Capital”, and really anything by Leonardo Boff. And oh, why not… “Empire” by Negri and Hardt.

Unfortunately Sam may not find those in his local Right Wing Reading Room because they had to prioritize such great works as, “The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today” by Sears and Osten, and, “The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially” by Waite and Gallagher.

To each their own, I suppose…

MRJ most communities have women’s shelters. Getting your friend to go can be a real challenge. I believe that long term emotional abuse, in little bits, can be as traumatic as an episode of actual violence. The person can have a hard time getting the courage to leave, or blame themselves for what is going on. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons to want to stay in the relationship, as awful as that sounds. It might even be as simple as insecurity about what might happen afterwards, just fear of facing the unknown. I’d suggest finding a local women’s shelter, call them, and explain the particulars of the scenario. I’m sure they’ll be able to help sort it out, no matter what the particulars of the scenario are. You might even volunteer at the shelter she goes to, to help make it easier for her. Good luck!

sam, i’m pretty sure that APS generally will only cover cases where a person is considered to be incapacitated. APS also has a very high workload and low resources which results in very little actual power to protect.

Wow Sam, regarding your incredibly patronizing comment regarding Soviet aviation, I have an entire conference of Historians of Technology in Copenhagen who might take slight issue with your assertions.

TsAGI, the Central Hydrodynamics Institute in Moscow is one of the world’s foremost centers for hydro- and aerodynamic studies. I highly recommend you watch the excellent ‘Wings of the Red Star’ series (narrated by Peter Ustinov, woohoo!) on YouTube.

Here, I’ve found one regarding the MiG-25, which was the plane you were referencing:

^[3]

The MiG-25 was blazingly fast, but it had very high wing loading, resulting in poor maneuverability. But that was not an issue, as its intended roles of interception (of the abortive B-70 Valkyrie) and reconnaissance had no great requirement for dogfighting.

But nice try, skippy. You can take your American exceptionalism and SHOVE IT.

Haven’t you heard Sam? The F-22 has never been used in combat and the whole project is being scrapped now that it has been found that it makes pilots sick, to the point that some are refusing to fly in it. The latest generation of Russian and Chinese fighters are, according to American sources, on par with, if not in some cases superior to, anything in the US air arsenal now.

Speaking of which, have you ever heard of something called an IL-2?

The fact is that Soviet planes and cars were designed not by “the government”, but by enterprises that happened to be owned by the state. As another poster pointed out, we saw what unregulated capitalism and the free market gave us back in the 1890s till about the 1930s. It wasn’t good. In fact if you want to know exactly how bad things were, you should go out and find a book called The Good Old Days – They were Terrible! by Otto Bettmann. In the ‘Good old days’ the milk you bought would be half water and chalk, your butter would be mostly hog fat and who knows what else, your job would be excruciating, the city would smell, public transport(which at that time was totally private) was overpriced, unreliable, and often dangerous, the streets were flanked by piles of garbage(free market didn’t provide good sanitation) and the entire city would smell terrible.

The F-22 is a good example of what happens when Tax & Spend Republicans get in office. $1.5 Trillion in 2009 defense spending suggests every right winger is a closeted socialist.

Reynardine: Thank You for the information, and, yes, I fully understand offender repercussions against whistle blowers and threats of lethal violence for making some drooling, knuckle dragger mad for pointing out his abuses.
Looong history of it in the Dominionist family I am from.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, however it may be seen, there are no children to intervene.

Erika: Yeah, the thread had kind of strayed…:)
I know of several more women in these types of situations in this area as it is endemic and condoned in many ways.
The black eye in a very public place of work after hearing the crowing about the “knock down, drag out with the old lady last night” by her husband two days before in a break room at work… and her statements of it being her “fault”. No Police report filed.
The girl who was assaulted by her father for coming home and asking for help because she was pregnant, the intercession of her brothers to stop him from punching her in the stomach, the stalking and harassment of her later, forcing her to leave the area because of “her Ba*tard kid”… No Police report filed.
The local girls raped at parties for “being drunk”, and the wholesale persecution of some of them for reporting it, or the fear of others to report it because of the “examples” made of those who did… No Police reports filed even though, several years later, one of them had to have surgery for cysts/complications due to trauma of the area.
Much more of this… and it makes me sick.

Aadila and Sam: Yes, I fully understand the situations of some women who stay in relationships through fear, insecurity, or an instigated/instilled situational hopelessness through constant belittling, threats, and gaslighting.
I also agree to the effects of the trauma of constant emotional abuse as opposed to the physical.
I in no way intend to belittle the effects of physical abuse.
Physical abuse can be observed, photographed and documented, whereas emotional is oft DARVO’ed and the glib, superficial, “compulsive lying and charm” of an abuser (and, often, associated “family” members or “friends”) to authorities and others is accepted as fact due to, literally, tens of thousands of years of Patriarchal Misogyny.
Emotional abuse is equated to a rape of the soul, and cannot necessarily be defined in a court where “feelings” are not pictures or recordings, where a woman (or a man) has been “conditioned” to react to certain situations by positive/negative reinforcement.
People can be “Skinner Box”ed in their own homes/churches/schools/families.
Poisonous Pedagogy, NPD, APD, etc. all also play a role: and concurrent dependant situations.
Some abusers cannot have their own Jonestown and personality cult, and must make of it anything they can.

Again, Thank You all for your advice, and Thank You SPLC for all that you do.

MRJ: I tried to answer before, and, as I am wireless, a lowflying plane glitched a lengthy answer, but let us try again.

DARVO is indeed a favorite tactic of abusers, of pathological families, and indeed, of whole oppressive strata of society. It is hard to fight, because the abuser proceeds from a position of self-righteousness, while the victim is sooner or later convinced of a culpability that is such an ingrained part of her/his identity that no amount of impeccable conduct can ever mitigate it. It is exactly because of this that individual or class victims tend to do poorly in court, as well: these are the people who flunk lie detector tests when they’re innocent, while the insoucience of abusers/psychopaths fool machines and human triers of fact alike.

Thus, it is all the more important that you collect and organize evidence, because the victim herself has been so thoroughly mind f****ed that, when she allows herself to remember at all, she will remember in ways that both trivialize the event and put her at fault. Before you ever have to convince any authority of what happened and how, you may have to convince her first.

You are very courageous and caring. Good luck!

As woman who grew up watching my violent, alcoholic father brutalize, humiliate, and beat my mother, I don’t find this sort of crap funny. Just reading about it triggers a PTSD response. Parody is protected speech, but there’s nothing funny about demeaning a group of people and inciting violence against them. It’s hate speech, pure and simple.

As a Victim who became disabled because of Domestic Violence I find this to very offensive and not funny at all. Its sick and shows dysfunction in those who think its humorous. I have to use a wheelchair oh thats real funny.

I’m sure you will show your consistency of morals by being every bit as outraged at this article, written by a woman, describing in exhaustive detail how to slap a man:
^[4]