So our blabby friend JohnTheOther has an especially blabby piece up on A Voice for Men at the moment. Its ostensible subject: the pure eeeevil of unnamed anti-MRAs who misrepresent the World’s Greatest 21st Century Human Rights Movement – the Men’s Rights Movement, that is – through the eeevil practice of “quote mining.”
I didn’t read the whole thing. Mr. TheOther is not what you’d call an efficient writer. Here are a few quotes mined from the article more or less at random that I think will give you a good idea of his, um, style:
Biology, or indeed, evolutionary theory is not really the topic of this discussion, rather it is provided here as example of a rhetorical practice increasingly common among opponents of a small but growing human rights movement. …
The developing practice in opposition to human rights, of quote-mining goes beyond pathetic, into the realm of craven, futile depravity. …
However, it seems that no matter how many times it is explained that a thing formed from (bad) ideas – an ideology, and a group of people, identifiable by sex, are two distinct things, gender ideologues continue to conflate them. …
I don’t know if any of this makes any more sense in context, as I didn’t read the context. Let’s continue:
A year ago, I wrote an article focusing on the necessary public repudiation of violence, and the responsibility of open opposition to those who advocated or promoted a climate of acceptable violence, including those who openly advocate murder, such as a group of swedish feminists, and eugenics advocates on the squalid radical-hub. Statements from my original piece were quoted by at least one amoral zombie, and reframed to present my view as one which called for violence.
Of course, the author of those yellow pixels might not have realized that the original article, along with it’s unambiguous opposition to violence was posted on a site with substantially higher traffic than his own. The craven and stupid dishonesty of the quote-miner was apparent to all but a few, blinded by their own ideological goggles.
Oh, wait, I think those last two paragraphs were supposed to be about me. And I think they were supposed to refer to this post of mine, which took a look at a post of his that defended A Voice for Men’s “outing” of a group of Swedish feminists that the AVFM crew had decided, on the basis of a brief video promoting a theatrical production, were “murder advocates.” His post contained the following (unedited) paragraphs.
That’s right manboob, identifying a group of self-declared murder advocates to the public is more important than protecting those murder advocates from the consequences of advocating murder.
In the truth-is-fiction world of Futrelle’s mind, the men’s right advocates calling for public identification of a hate organization have been transmogrified into promoters of violence.
And what if they get killed David? What if rather than be arrested – as promoters of hate, and public advocates of murder, what if these depraved and murderous female supremacists come to harm at the hands of a citizen. If that happens, it will mean that a society’s system of law, designed to prevent hate organizations, and to allow redress of grievance through non violent due process is gone, wiped out by your ideology of violence and hate. That’s what you’re defending, David.
In my post, I quoted the final paragraph; here I have included the two preceding grafs to give it a bit more, what’s that word, context.
Of course, a couple of paragraphs by themselves are still kind of “out of context” I guess. Since I am pretty sure no one would like it if I simply pasted in the entire post from JtO here, I will instead direct you to his original post, here. You may make of it what you wish. I rather doubt that you will see it as a clearheaded treatise of nonviolence. Especially with that line: “And what if they get killed David?” (Which you can read in context above, or, again, in his original post. Let me link to it a sixth time here, just to make sure you know how to find his original words in context. Oops, that’s seven times now)
Interesting that a master debater of Mr. TheOther’s caliber somehow forgot to provide even one link to the controversy he was referring to, so people might be able to see for themselves what had happened, and judge his claims accordingly. I wonder why that might be?
I’ll skip the next bit in Mr. TheOther’s latest post, in which Mr.TheOther suggests that an opponent of his might have taken a quote of his out of context in a way that makes him look racist and homophobic. But since he offers no links to the actual discussion, there’s no way of judging whether this particular quote-mining claim is true. (Perhaps this discussion on the Men’s Rights subreddit could shed some light on it?)
In any case, if we put this particular discussion in a broader, er, context, there is certainly ample evidence of homophobia amongst the A Voice for Men crowd, as I have pointed out here and here. (Protip: If you want to convince people you are not homophobic, you should probably not feature a video mocking “lesbo-bos” in the sidebar of the site you help to run.)
Anyway, this next bit of his definitely has something or other to do with me:
Bottom feeding quote miners indulging in snarky feats of futrelian deceit likely do win rhetorical brownie points, at least when seen through their own ideological goggles. But they are cementing their own a public persona which will wear about as comfortably as klan robes do at a NAACP meeting. The altered landscape this movement is building is not someday, it is now, and it is coming faster all the time.
Uh, dude, my last name has two L’s in it. It should be “Futrellian deceit.” If you’re going to turn my name into a slur, at least spell it correctly.
For individuals in opposition to human rights of men and boys now, whether through lying, repetition of old, false dogmas, or the craven tactic of mis-represented and mis-attributed meaning, the comfort of a formerly one-sided monologue is over. The public squirming we see in attempts to render MRA voices silent or apologetic will escalate before it abates. But that’s okay.
Hey, Mr. TheOther. If you really want to prove my “futrelian” or even my “Futrellian” deceit, how about this: provide specific examples of me taking something you or some other MRA has written out of context in a way that distorts its meaning.
For your convenience, you can find all the Man Boobz posts that reference you here and here.
And for anyone who now has the song “Working In the Coal Mine” stuck in their head, here’s the Lee Dorsey original:
“The altered landscape this movement is building is not someday, it is now, and it is coming faster all the time.”
How can “now” come any faster? Now is already here. Now is *always* already here!
NWOSlave:
We’re talking about raising children, about who does that. I’m being straight with you here, and I’d like an answer in good faith: have you ever been around kids? Did you have siblings growing up? Do you have nieces and nephews? Little kids can’t feed, take care of, or govern themselves: they have terrible judgement, no experience, and different cognition from adults. And yet they, like the rest of us, must eat or die.
(1) Who on earth do you think is doing the work to make sure all these kids are taken care of?
(2) Do you think this work is difficult or easy, after reading the other posts in this thread?
“I get to bitch how I do all the work and you don’t do shit. I get to dictate whose oppressed. I get to spend 80% of the worlds wealth. You have sex me up whenever I say so, my mood is all that matters. One wrong word from you and you’ll be out on alimony/child support row living in the gutter. You get your lazy ass out there and work, the day you die is the day you get to retire. It’s all about me baby.”
If this is how he views marriage and relationships, it’s probably best that he’s not in one. It amazes me how some, if not most MRAs are completely clueless as to the fact that happily married people ARE BEST FRIENDS.
The thing is, a quick look around on any given day will show that most couples do not match the model that NWO is suggesting is the norm. Given that he does not work from home, he must have to go outside sometimes, so there’s no way that he hasn’t seen those couples. He just believes what he wants to believe.
@VoIP
“We’re talking about raising children, about who does that. I’m being straight with you here, and I’d like an answer in good faith: have you ever been around kids? Did you have siblings growing up? Do you have nieces and nephews? Little kids can’t feed, take care of, or govern themselves: they have terrible judgement, no experience, and different cognition from adults. And yet they, like the rest of us, must eat or die.
(1) Who on earth do you think is doing the work to make sure all these kids are taken care of?
(2) Do you think this work is difficult or easy, after reading the other posts in this thread?”
I don’t know why, because I’ll most certainly be ridiculed, but I’ll reply in good faith. In order to get out of that shithole of a city, my brother, my sister, her three kids and I shacked up in a tiny rented house for several years in order to save up to buy a house/houses.
I was the only one who could get my niece to eat dinner so every night that’s what I’d do. I taught all of them to play chess. A few times my vacation consisted of staying home and watching the kids, (they were considered all of our kids) while my sister went on vacation.
One hilarious moment I recall was when we destroyed the house with popcorn. I said that cleaning was a game and who could fill the bowl with the most popcron was the winner. My oldest niece of course said it wasn’t a game, yet me and the youngest two kept saying it was. At one point she straightened up stiff as a board and let out an ear piercing scream that lasted for what seemed like 20 minutes. I could not stop laughing and the popcorn fight began once again.
Keep in mind this was my vacation. Everynight, not just then but for years I told them bedtime stories. I never read out of a book it was all just winging it. There is not one day of work I wouldn’t trade for one day at home, ever. The video Dave gave. Do you think any of those men wouldn’t rather be at home? My job might not be quite as hard but it isn’t far behind. I’m looking at my work sheet from 6/9 which is 87.02 hours and the week of 6/16 is 85.45 hours. And I get to spend my time in a hotel after work.
There is simply no comparison, none at all. I literally have spent vacations watching children and I consider it a vacation. Probably 95% of the men I know also would consider it a vacation, especially if they, “had” to do it the rest of their lives. I’m being completely honest. Most men work in labor jobs that differ little from those miners, jobs that literally suck your life away. You never see them, but the the amenities you take for granted, they’re the people making it happen. Now ridicule away!!!
NWO, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you’re not just making shit up. It sounds like you’re a fun and loving uncle. It actually made me sad to read that, because you somehow went from a being a loving, fun person to being the incomprehensible, angry person that you are now. (Although that bit about your older niece screaming for 20 minutes is making my back-brain go HMMMM, what’s up with that?)
I know people who spend their vacations volunteering for hard, physical labour in 3rd world countries. They work ridiculous hours doing disgusting things for free, and they enjoy it. It’s a break from their regular life, and it’s temporary.
I loved taking care of my nephews. I went through some fairly long stretches (2 1/2 months was the longest) of being on call 24/7, with no days off from it when my youngest nephew was around 4. I love him to bits, but it was exhausting, and if I’d had to do that for the rest of his childhood, I would have done some regrettable things, and scarred us both for life.
You had fun being the care taking uncle because you loved the kids, and it was a break from your hated job. It was your VACATION. I can happily shovel shit out of barns on my vacation, because it’s better than being at work, and it’s temporary.
Why did your sister need a vacation from her kids? Because being on call for childcare 24/7, being the person responsible for making all the decisions, being the one who stays reasonable (because little kids can’t be), being the one who has to keep track of ALL THE THINGS is exhausting.
We don’t bash on you for saying you work hard, but for saying that AT THE SAME TIME that you’re saying caregivers don’t work hard. It’s all hard work. It’s all worthy of respect.
We bash on you because you behave all insulted that you’re not getting enough respect, when you don’t GIVE ANY respect.
“I can happily shovel shit out of barns on my vacation, because it’s better than being at work, and it’s temporary.”
Damn. Some people HATE their jobs. 🙁
When I was teaching, it didn’t even feel like work. It just felt like I was doing my natural thing. I feel very fortunate for that.
@Unimaginative
“We don’t bash on you for saying you work hard, but for saying that AT THE SAME TIME that you’re saying caregivers don’t work hard. It’s all hard work. It’s all worthy of respect.”
But that’s the thing, it isn’t, “hard.” My sister, whose quite honest will be the first to admit it isn’t hard. She’s had a few low level jobs, (bank teller, cashier, ect.). She’ll flat out say that oh yeah, being a homemaker is way easier than even those low level jobs.
Do you consider feeding, cleaning and caring for yourself while at home the, “hard” part of your life? That’s the easy part of life. The hard part is the work part away from home. When I leave work I don’t say, “Now comes the hard part where I have to feed and clothe myself.”
Why do people by lotteries? They buy them so they can stay home and not do the hard part of life. Not too likely many lottery winners rush off to work 10-12 hour days in a mentally/physically demanding jobs because they find home life too difficult.
Home life = easy.
Work life = hard.
Re. Volokh: Now that I’ve thought about it some more, all that stuff he said about torture and, just recently, giving people the “freedom” to sell their organs — sounds very familiar to me. It’s amazing how powerful Ivan the Terrible’s legacy is.
Today I learned that caring for a family is basically like putting clothes on yourself. After winning the lottery.
…But it would still be very demeaning for a man to do full-time.
Because we all know that, if you get a job, your household tasks suddenly disappear.
Also I learned that getting out of Philadelphia is basically like escaping Hell, which is very weird for me considering I have family from there and seriously. It has some really poor and run-down areas, but it’s also got its share of fancy neighborhoods, good schools, and major businesses headquartered there. It’s not like all of Philadelphia is The Pit Of Doom.
@NWO
For me, the easy part of coming home after work is sitting down, putting up my feet, reading, surfing the net, whatever. Yes, I have to feed myself and keep the house hygienic, and some days that’s just nothing, and other days it’s a huge, huge burden, because why the fuck am I the only one who realizes that the supply of toilet paper has to occasionally be replaced and that groceries don’t just self-generate in the kitchen?
It’s easy to be a stay at home caregiver for some people. For other people, it’s keeping them from doing something they’d rather be doing. Writing a novel, discovering the Higgs-Boson particle, I don’t know. My sister doesn’t particularly care for her job, but couldn’t WAIT to go back to work after maternity leave. Her husband didn’t even WANT paternity leave.
Some people apparently love their jobs, and can’t wait to get to work in the morning.
People are different from each other. We don’t all enjoy the same things. Some people like their steak rare, some people like their tofu deep-fried. Not everyone is suited for the job they do, whether it’s cleaning houses, or building them, or designing them, or brokering the deal for them.
Even people who like their jobs need to have their work noticed and appreciated. There is a strong tendency for people to take stay at home caregivers’ work for granted. For instance, you. You think keeping house and taking care of children is fun and easy. It’s not for everybody. For some people, it’s drudgery.
We get that you hate your job, and you wish you could stay at home. It’s not the fault of people who can stay at home that you can’t. Why be so bitchy that they can? Why get so angry when they point out that what they do is actually contributing to the household, and is valuable, and they’re not just sitting around waiting for their ATM to get home and give them stuff? Why take it so personally?
If you really, really want to be a stay at home caregiver, become a nanny. Granted, you won’t make much pay, and chances are pretty good that you’ll be disrespected and treated poorly. But otherwise, it’s a life of bliss for you. Go for it.
By the way:
Have you ever done one of those “low level” jobs? The examples you gave have a huge customer service component, and let me tell you. Customers are assholes. Being polite in the face of massive assholery is really, really hard. No fucking kidding it’s easier to stay at home than deal with a whole shift of that crap.
The point is, it may be true for you, and it may be true for your sister, but it’s not true for everybody in all circumstances.
I think NWO is jealous of people (women) who can stay home all day. I guess staying home all day, washing clothes, mopping floors, preparing meals, scrubbing toilets, etc. is his idea of Heaven, which is kind of sad.
Not ridiculing at all. But what is your solution to that, NWOSlave? Or is that the best you think life has to offer?
Also, I understand that doing hard physical labor for decades takes a huge toll on the human body, and NWO might just be in pain and exhausted all of the time (and cranky). A man needs to be able to retire, and get decent, affordable health care, and spend his senior years building birdhouses and shit. I think it is sad that so many people can’t, but it’s not the fault of stay at home wives and mothers.
So, going back to Ruby (I’m catching up here): Prisoners who are in prison for rape, child molestation, and incest have told me stories about being raped and molested as little boys.
I have to wonder whether Ruby finds it, like, retroactively hilarious that these abusers were once young children who were raped? Does it matter that the extreme trauma of something like, oh say, being raped as a young child, can affect a person’s life in ways like that person being more likely to being abused in the future, more likely to become addicted, or more likely to be an abuser?
I mean, I suspect I know the answers that a total piece of shit would give.
NWO:
Thank you for your honest, respectful answer. It sounds like you had a lot of fun with your niece and nephews. That’s great. You may not believe this, but the Manboobzers like to see you happy. One of the things that really gets us about you is that you don’t seem to enjoy anything. I’m glad you enjoy this.
Another thing I’d like to point out is that you obviously really enjoyed things that men aren’t “supposed to” enjoy in our culture, namely hanging out with kids, at home. That’s great! It’s OK that that’s what you like. It sounds like you really envy stay-at-home parents. I, on the other hand, enjoy working with my hands–my favorite job ever was in a paper factory.
But the people who are fighting so other men can take care of children without feeling ashamed, and women can work in paper factories without being shunned, are feminists. MRAs are the ones who are trying to enforce a “one-size-fits-all” masculinity where men can’t stay home, even if they want to. They are working against the things that make you happy. I’m sorry that they’ve suckered you into supporting them.
I’d like to ask you a few things, though. What did you do when the kids got sick? Did you stay up with them all night? If so, did you have to do anything important the next day? Did the tough decisions fall on you? Was this hard?
Because your characterization of this experience as a “vacation”–and your only mentioning the fun times, and not the bad times–lead me to believe that you saw child care as something people can just walk away from if they want to. That’s not the case for everyone.
Unimaginative:
Meh, he just said it “seemed like” 20 minutes. Little kids can shriek when they really want to, and even a few seconds of that can seem like forever.
Fembot
Oh boy, yes. When my grandfather (my dad’s dad) was an old man, he couldn’t raise his hands past his shoulder any more—my dad had to put his coat on for him every morning at dawn. On the other hand, my mother also did a lot of heavy physical work, caring for her younger siblings and, later, us; by the time I was in my teens, her wrists were so bad that she was in constant pain.
Two people, both worked into the ground, but one did work marked “masculine” (he sold fruits and vegetables out of a cart in New York) and one did work marked “feminine” (child care)—guess who gets typed as a Stalwart Hero of Labor, and who’s just doing what’s expected?
” I may even chuckle about it.” -Ruby
No.
You are disrespecting the victims of the person you are chuckling about. I know that you won’t understand that, but… I’m putting it out there.
http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2011/10/world-of-warcraft-text-murder-201110
Feeling like you want these monsters to go through what they put someone through might be understandable, read this. HOWEVER, chuckle away and think of the perps described in this article.
Congrats you have just joined their ranks. There is nothing but sadness in anger that is appropriate in my opinion. Taken together with your libertarian madness, Ruby, and YUCK.
I will admit I resent to scrolling through threads and seeing endless Ruby comments, so I’m always debating if I should say what I think about you or not. But there it is. You’ve got room to grow in some important ways in my opinion.
At least you don’t seem overly sensitive to the criticisms you get here
LOL.
Made myself laugh.
That’s what I think. NWO views cleaning bathrooms and changing diapers as a vacation. If that’s the case, he would probably be very happy as a maid or a daycare owner. The pay is very low and there is zero prestige, but at least he would be doing what he loves.
Now at a daycare, you’ll still have to deal with difficult customers. I used to work at a daycare and I’ve watched kids out of my home. One of my biggest gripes is how parents will bring a child who is very sick and try to downplay it with “Oh sure he has a 104 degree fever, but it’s just teething”. I notice white spots on the child’s throat, the child can’t hold anything down, so I’ll call the parents, and they’ll be like “I’m busy at work. Give him a cough drop and it will be fine”. I realize bosses can be hard on parents, but at the same time it’s not fair to the daycare worker or the other children to pretend not to notice strep throat or pneumonia. Sorry, rant over.
NWO says Philadelphia is horrible. I can’t be a judge on that, because my views of the city are based on seeing the Liberty Bell in movies. I do know that it is depressing, though, to live in the middle of a rough area. I remember describing my neighborhood last year as looking like a landfill or war zone. While I wouldn’t complain about it, it was a downer. So I can see where he’s coming from.
I’m wondering about this, too. NWO didn’t have all of the responsibilities that come from being a full time caregiver. Parenting has easy times and hard times. It’s one thing to do all the fun stuff like playing frisbee at the park, and another to be the one who does the harder things like cleaning up after a toddler finds a tube of lipstick and uses it to make art on the walls and furniture. It’s a lot like frog gigging. My brother and his buddies would go out at night with flashlights and gigs killing frogs and putting them in a bucket. When he brought them home, it was Mom and I who had to wash the bodies, cut off the legs, pull off the skin, and either fry the legs or store them for later. For the guys, the job was fun and easy. For us women, it was all work, all mess, and no fun.
Really, the “quote mining”/”out of context” excuse requires that the context be specifically an indication that the person doesn’t believe it. Like the Dworkin quote where the context is “my opponents would accuse me of saying X, but that’s not what I believe.”
NWO:
What country is slavey actually from? If I were to point to that country on a map, what name would the map use for the country I was pointing at?
Because he doesn’t seem to have heard of the Declaration of Independence. Like, he seems to think it’s something hellkell made up. Though I suppose the fact that I linked to it is further NWO-evidence that it doesn’t exist, since as we know, anything that has a source is false.
Alternatively, he’s so used to his knee-jerk pitiable attmpts at mockery and sarcasm that he doesn’t even pay attention to the topic at hand.
Fembot:
It’s not.
You just have to do it more often.
Um, Hershele, doing something more often usually consumes more time than doing that same thing once.