jefferiah

Agreed. I am sure there are many women who would be a great asset in any field. That does not change the fact that these policies would take away the right of someone to hire who he/she wants to work in a business that he/she owns, on the basis that they "could" discriminate. And in many cases these policies are going to be responsible for sexual discrimination in hiring. The fact that women are not as well represented in the "board room" (which may not even be due to discrimination in many cases) is not the sort of emergency that would make me even consider superceding such freedoms.

I haven't seen very many anti-athiest threads since I have joined MLW.

It is certainly not the same. My example is actually a worse insult. Allow me to explain. A slur is usually something insulting. Indian is not intentionally insulting. There is no implied or intended insult when someone calls a native an Indian. It is just a name we know them by. It does not mean a person of bad or good character. And it is certainly not comparable to "nigger" because people do not mean it in the bad way they usually do when this term is used. Calling a pro-lifer anti-choice is a direct attempt at an insult. It subverts the pro-life meaning to make it sound as if they are actually against women's rights.

I disagree. No one is entitled to have power over another person's mouth. We are entitled to have a preference. For instance people who do not believe in abortion call themselves "pro-life". But if a feminist writes a newspaper article she has a right to call them "anti-choice". It may be a shallow misrepresentation on her part, but she still has that right.

But you do understand that it has been in the cultural dictionary for a long time, and with no intended offensive meaning either, right? So sometimes people are still going to say it. And they don't mean anything bad by it. Do you think that is an outrage? I know a few small towns that changed their names quite some time ago when they amalgamated. Many people still call those areas by their old names. It sticks.

I am Canadian. Go ahead and call me Yankee. Do you think that is a huge offense? I am not from England. Some people might call me English.

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Yep, cuz everyone knows its the guns committing the crimes. Those guns deserve to be tarred and feathered.

And what happens when criticism of another group becomes hate-mongering. Then reasonable dissent becomes a criminal act, Mike. What does it mean to ban Islamophobia? What do those who wish to ban it consider Islamophobia? Is criticism of Islam and talk of the prevalence of radicalism within the culture constitute Islamaphobia? If so, then how can anyone ever address this problem? Would Ed Husain's views constitute Islamophobia? "Husain has also explained that he believes Islam is in need of modernisation. In an interview with Time Out, Husain says: 'As I left extremism I realised that if you are born here and grow up here, then you belong here. The Islam that was preached 2,000 years ago isn’t going to work here in modern London. MUSLIMS NEED TO ALTER THEIR LIFESTYLES TO A WESTERN LIFESTYLE. To criticise is not Islamaphobic. It’s about opposing certain ideas.'" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Husain How about criticism of CAIR or CAN-CAIR?

Wow. What an argument! What is insulting about the term Indian? What is the implied meaning?

So when I am called "English" which is a mistake then it is also a terrible offense? How does the fact that it is a mistake make it an insult? You still haven't explained the implied insult.

Just wanted to note here that I made a mistake in my arguments against Mithraism and I wanted to correct it. The correction however does not take away from the strenght of my position and may add to it. The reason I want to correct it is so that my info is more reliable. I think in the original thread on this topic I may have done a better job, but in the last few days I mentioned that there was nothing in all this wealth of Mithraic texts to suggest these theories about the similarities. I was arguing from memory of my previous arguments, which I must confess is not that good. The problem with this is that there is no wealth of Mithraic texts. Serious researchers deny the claims of these ties, because as I have said over and over, it requires one to actually reinvent Mithraism out of nothing.

Well since you replied to Posit's post which was a reply to my own (concerning this Indian topic) I assumed you were taking his side in the debate. That's my mistake then Margrace, but a natural one don't you think.

Great. Now explain to me how if someone uses the term Indian once in a while, which is still present in cultural memory, how it is an intended insult? An insult is a deagradation of someone's character right. So when someone calls a native an "Indian" what is the insulting meaning implied? And even more than this I would like you to explain how the fact that I think getting upset over the term Indian is basically an example of fishing for something to be upset over translates to my trying to maintain and control a situation? What am I trying to control?

That's just it. I don't know. I don't know each individual case. I don't know the women who applied. And I don't know how many women applied in comparison to men. And neither do you. And it is still your question to answer. Since you want to take away the power of the owners of a private company to decide who they can employ, you have to provide the evidence. What we both know and can agree on is that there is a great margin of error in such a policy. You did agree with me on this. And you are aware that there will be cases where these policies will actually "require" the employer to hire based on the sex of the applicant. Now, some may argue that in some situations intervention is needed. For the sake of argument, let's assume that is true. You asked, "Should women have to live with the way things are." What way is that? Not being on a Board of Directors? To my mind that is not such an urgent state of affairs to necessitate applying interventionist policies that will supercede private freedom, and in turn create some cases of actual discrimination in hiring, where they may have been none in the first place. You had might as well say that America has to appoint Obama or Hillary president on the basis that 100 percent of its presidents have been white and male.

And does this generally violate the life saving credo we call the Hypocratic Oath? Isn't it actually following that creed with greater strictness?

The Controllers?

No, not if the work world is a private corporation. Private interests are private interests--whether they be those of a bejewelled gajillionaire with regard to his privately owned company or those of a ragged looney-aire with regard to his hut. The freedom you procure from the richest of the rich is the same freedom you procure from the poorest of the poor.

Well I can understand that. No it is not mysogynistic to disagree with a feminist. If so then that would basically amount to "Feminists are always right."

This is not my question to answer but yours. You are making the case against businessmen for being bigots. Burden of proof is on you. Are you saying that everytime a workplace has more men than women it is because of discrimination?

I do the dishes too, Kengs. Some of the world's best chef's are men, and if you want to get biblical remember that the domestic Jacob was chosen over his macho hunter brother Esau. The sexual revolution and feminism may have come about mutually and had many ties and connections, but they are not exactly the same. I do not support a great deal of the ideas of those who call themselves feminists, but do you think it is wrong for women to work? To vote?

How do you know it is more fair than the alternative? You have not even established yet that in most cases where men outnumber women that it is directly because of discrimination.

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I know people from those groups who agree with me. One fellow is a black fellow from texas who chats on a conservative american chat I used to frequent a little. And he grew up quite poor too and in some bad circumstances. We both went to a lefty chat room and the topic of such policies came up. He made the same arguments I am making right now. Interesting thing is that, had this been him in my place, posting to you...welll Would you have known he was black? The people in the leftist chat called him a racist white supremacist bigot, etc etc. Never once did he point out that he was black.

Now your turn In a society where everyone was free from discrimination do you think everything would just evenly pan out in a magical way. If someone from this ideal society had a party and invited all the people they liked would it have equal numbers of black people, white people, males, females, shemales, etc.