Ann Barnhardt, contemporary anti-suffragette: “As soon as the 19th amendment was passed, men were effectively castrated, and in many, many cases disenfranchised by their wives.”

As election day draws ever nearer – at least for those of us here in the States – I thought I’d devote a couple of posts to some of those who think that half of us should be prevented from casting our votes this November. I think you can probably guess which half.

The strangest thing to me about those who still think that Women’s Suffrage was a bad idea – aside from the fact that they exist at all – is that some of them are women.

Consider the strange case of Ann Barnhardt.

A right-wing blogger and the  founder of a now-shuttered commodities brokerage, Barnhardt has very strong opinions about a lot of things, including Presidential politics, and is not shy about sharing them. Indeed, when she went all Galt and shut down Barnhardt Capital Management last year, she declared:

I will not, under any circumstance, consider reforming and re-opening Barnhardt Capital Management, or any other iteration of a brokerage business, until Barack Obama has been removed from office AND the government of the United States has been sufficiently reformed and repopulated so as to engender my total and complete confidence in the government, its adherence to and enforcement of the rule of law, and in its competent and just regulatory oversight of any commodities markets that may reform.

(For the rest of her explanation, see here.)

Despite her strong political convictions, Barnhardt also believes, apparently with equal conviction, that she should not be able to express her opinions through the ballot box.

In a couple of posts she calls “Permanently Disqualified From Everything,” she presents her case against Women’s Suffrage.

Do you know when things really started to go – literally – to hell in this country? When women were given the right to vote seperate and apart from their husbands. What a flipping disaster. This is when the war against marriage and the family began in earnest – and it has taken less than 100 years for both institutions to be almost completely destroyed. And it all started with the damn suffrage.

Just a quick note: When most people say “literally” they don’t literally mean “literally.” When Barnhardt uses the word, she means it. She thinks Suffrage is literally pushing our country closer to H-E-doublehockeysticks. You know, THE Hell, with the heat and the fire and the brimstone and Satan and all of that. More on this in a moment.

In the meantime, she explains just what is so awful about women having the right to vote:

Here’s the deal. Up until women’s suffrage, a man was the head of his marriage and his household, and his vote represented not just himself but his entire family, including his wife and his children. When men voted, they were conscious of the fact that they were voting not just for themselves and their own personal interests, but they were also charged with the responsibility of discerning and making the ultimate decision about what was in the best interests of their entire family. Wow. Isn’t that nuts? Men being . . . responsible?

Boy, life must have been idyllic back when women couldn’t vote and men were proper patriarchs.

As soon as the 19th amendment was passed, men were effectively castrated, and in many, many cases disenfranchised by their wives.

Hey, at least she didn’t say “literally castrated.”

No longer was the man the head of the household. No longer was he responsible for his wife. Now the wife was a “co-husband” at best, or a flat-out adversary at worst. The notion of a man making the final decision about what was best for his wife and family per his God-given vocation as husband and father was now over. Now all he was good for was bringing home the bacon – but even that wouldn’t last.

If men can’t lord it over women, they have no value except as providers of money?

Oh, but she’s just getting started with the God stuff. See who makes an appearance in this next bit. Could it be … Satan?

Women are made with a healthy, innate desire to be provided for and protected. …

Satan has used this healthy feminine dynamic, perverted by suffrage, to systematically replace men with the government as the providers in society.

Apparently Barnhardt thinks that she’s the only woman who works.

A woman no longer has any need of a man. Marriage no longer serves any practical purpose. A woman can whore around and have as many fatherless children as she pleases, and Pimp Daddy Government will always be there to provide.

… a tiny amount of money to keep the kids from literally going hungry.

Men have learned well from this, too. Men can also slut it up to their heart’s content knowing that the government will take care of their “women” and raise their children for them.

You know, it’s entirely possible for men, women and others to “slut it up” without any babies being produced at all. (Email me for details.)

I believe that the 19th amendment actually DISenfranchised more people than it enfranchised. Many, many married couples quickly found themselves voting against one another. The man would tend to vote for the more conservative platform, and the woman would vote for the more socialist platform. When this happened, the effective result was the nullification of BOTH individuals’ votes.

Disagreement is not the same as disenfranchisement. Using Barnhardt’s logic, you could argue that in most elections the overwhelming majority of votes “cancel each other out,” and thus are “nullified” in this fashion. Indeed, following the logic to its natural conclusion, the only elections in which most votes “count” would be elections in totalitarian countries in which the dude in charge gets 99% of the vote. Most of us are glad when our vote cancels out the vote of someone whose views we abhor.

What this did was massively reduce the voting influence of the married household, and magnify the voting influence of the unmarried – and the unmarried tend to be younger, and thus more stupid, and thus vote for big government. It was all part of the plan, kids. All part of the plan.

“The plan?” How can a conspiracy theory that makes no damn sense in the first place have been someone’s devious plan nearly a century ago?

I would give up my vote in a HEARTBEAT if it meant that right-ordered marriage, family and sexuality was restored to our culture. I would rather that my little female namesakes grow up in a world where they did not have the right to vote, but were treated with dignity and respect, were addressed as “ma’am”, had doors held for them, and wherein men stood up when they entered the room. … Oh, HELL yes. I’ll give up my vote in exchange for that any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Why wouldn’t you?

Because that’s a ridiculous imaginary choice? I too would happily give up my vote if the world were suddenly transformed to match my political and social fantasies. Heck, I would give up all my future wages if someone gave me a bazillion dollars right now. I’d give up my 14-year-old TV for a gigantic new flatscreen HDTV.

But that’s not how the world works. So I’m hanging on to my vote for now, and would encourage everyone else to hang on to theirs as well. Except maybe Ann Barnhardt, who doesn’t seem to appreciate hers.

For no good reason, here’s a great old song by Paul McCartney that mentions suffragettes (though, frankly, the lyrics don’t make much sense at all).