I‘ve been so busy with all the shenanigans surrounding AVFM and their little conference that I’m afraid I’ve been neglecting the good old Men’s Rights subreddit. Don’t feel bad, Men’s Rights subreddit, for today I took a few moments out of my hard-core semi-vacationing to pay you a little visit!
While there, I noticed the regulars discussing a terrible quandary that faces all modern men: “As a man, would you help a child in distress?”
Here are some of the answers that got upvoted:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 3](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-3.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 1](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-1.png?ssl=1)
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14 4](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14-4.png?ssl=1)
Yep. Upvotes for a fellow who says he let a three-year-old boy literally fall out of a shopping cart and smash his head open because, oh no, some hypothetical hysterical mother might have accused him of child molestation.
The details of his story make so little sense I can only assume he’s making the story up — if he was walking past the bakery, how could he have been close enough to “reflexively grab” a child in a shopping cart inside the bakery?
I’m not sure which is worse, the thought that this guy actually let a kid fall and smash his head, or the thought that he made up a story about doing so in order to gain some internet points from MRAs. (Well, the former, obviously, but either way this is a mortifying spectacle.)
But not everyone got upvotes. Here’s a comment that got thumbs down from the Men’s Rightsers — along with a heavily upvoted reply:
![Screen Shot 2014-07-08 at Tue, [Jul 8], 14](https://i0.wp.com/www.wehuntedthemammoth.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/screen-shot-2014-07-08-at-tue-jul-8-14.png?ssl=1)
Human Rights: You’re doing it wrong.
Thanks to r/AMR for pointing me to this lovely thread.
Adendum to the Ohio statute on hacked info: it’s an affirmative defense to say, “I had reason to believe I had permission, or that if the owner had been present I would have been given permission”.
So all the person who is obliged to report needs to do is say, “it seemed reasonable s/he wouldn’t have done it without permission”.
Exactly. Even if you are an inveterate “bless you”-er, surely you wouldn’t get angry if someone else didn’t say “bless you” when you sneezed.
Unless you’re Loki from Dogma, of course.
Saying bless you after a sneeze is one of those social conventions I would like to see disappear. It’s pointless. It’s my understanding that there used to be a superstition that your soul flew out of your mouth when you sneezed leaving you vulnerable to evil spirits. Does anybody actually believe that anymore?
What about if we all agree to say bless you in a foreign language and pretend that it means something else?
I’d find being asked that peculiar and more awkward than the person ahead of me just holding the door open. Maybe we do it differently here, but it’s not at all unusual for people to hold the door open so the other can go through first – I do it, and have had it done for me, all the time. I’m not talking going for a quiet walk here, I’m talking commuting, or going shopping – things where interaction at some small level is part of the deal. I’m introverted too, I don’t go out to socialise, but I do think it would be rude not to acknowledge someone holding a door for me, or stepping aside to let me in/out of a lift first, or any of those little things. I don’t frame it as a reward at all – and heavens, we’re not talking about demanding a conversation, or a forced smile, but a simple thank you. Seems to me extreme to lump that in the same category as men demanding women smile, or anything else that counts as a microaggression.
Howard Bannister: you mean “gesundheit”?
katz:
We are ultimately in agreement, I think. Anyone who tries to take advantage of the basic social contract is an asshole. I hold doors for people not because I am expecting thanks, but because I think its common courtesy.
In agreement with kittehserf though, that asking first would be super weird in the situation I most often find myself having to hold doors – I work in an organization where I generally get off the bus with a large group of colleagues I don’t know and then we all file into the building through a series of doors. In this environment, I generally hold the door for anyone who is a few seconds behind me… because it would be weird not to. But that’s totally the culture of my specific workplace.
Howard Bannister:
Where I live, we just say “santé”, which means “health”, which I quite like. “Bless you” makes me feel weird, because even though I’m a native English speaker, I have deep suspicion of anything that feels even vaguely religious. Saying “health” to someone feels like saying “I acknowledge that you are sneezing your brains out in the cubicle right beside mine, I hope it’s not serious!”
The Australian op ed piece was so annoying because it put a random man’s freedom to what ever he pleases, where ever he pleases above a mother’s desire for a child to be safe in a space designed specifically for them, and then painted her as a hysterical creep-shamer to boot. Several commentators cried about how unfair it all was since that man’s tax dollars paid for that park. Get over yourselves dudes.
In NYC, every playground in a park is fully enclosed with a sign saying only adults accompanying a child are allowed in. Here are the freedom destroying rules that enslave NYC park goers:
We big city libs love creep-shaming and destroying personal liberty in the name of Cultural Marxism. That’s our collectivist jam.
“Yes, it’s hard to think of good reasons not to thank someone–vow of silence?”
Day of Silence or they could be mute and either not know to nod/whatever, or you missed it.
Every NYC playground? I can’t go play if I don’t have a kid? But I fit in the castles still and love playing pirate and goofing off on the swing and such! (This may be why parents never look at me weird when I smile at their kids on playgrounds, I’m often signaling the kid to go ahead, it is zir play space after all)
Not unfair or anything, just boring. I’ll live.
Thanks to my Eastern European grandmother, I still have the urge to throw salt over my left shoulder after I spill it and am wary of whistling in the house because I was always warned it calls the Devil. So my compulsive need to say “bless you” even after strangers sneeze isn’t my only problematic behavior tic as a life-long agnostic.
Yeah, I don’t think we’re super far off from each other here. Of course you don’t usually ask to hold a door for someone, I just don’t think you’re beholden to get a “thank you” in that situation, either. But if you did ask (say, because a parent in front of you was trying to get a door while maneuvering a stroller), then I think it would be rude for them not to thank you.
@Argenti
Pretty sure that’s the rule for all of them.
Another applicable comic.
SWEET JESUSFUCK UNDFREELAND IS BACK. BURN HIS MODEM! BURN IT WITH FIRE! *coughs, clears throat* I mean… dude, didn’t you say you were leaving really truly for promises last time?
RE: cassandrakitty
So, complete stranger, heavily armed, not much in the way of shared language.
This reminds me of a story from my Accidental Stay in Fiji! (Yes, accidental. The airline ended up so long delayed en route to New Zealand that staff decided to put us up outside the airport before the lot of us revolted.)
So, here I am wandering around Fiji, exploring, and I’m out of the tourist areas. And I see a very intimidating looking local policeman. (Photo isn’t the dude, just to show what kind of uniforms they wear.) He had a very stern face, and despite having done nothing wrong, I felt irrationally that he could somehow see every terrible thing I’d ever done.
Of course, he walked right on past me, going about his business, which was going home, because not long after passing me, a small child came barrelling out of the house, shouting what was obviously the local equivalent of, “Daddy! Daddy!” Sterny McGlowerFace immediately breaks into a huge smile and catches the kid and starts swinging them around. Bam! Instantly, I was no longer intimidated by him.
RE: pallygirl
there’s one thing that seems to be a peculiar niceness with Wellington folk. Everytime one of us gets off the bus, we thank the driver.
Yes! I learned that habit while I was living there, and still do it to this day! It was kinda weird in Boston, but here in Ohio, the drivers seem to like it generally.
Brooked — aw, I guess I’ll have to refrain from a swing break when in NYC.
Katz — yes, yes I am in the “never too old for this” stage. Which is why I’m already pondering Halloween costumes. My brother did get me a fez and bow tie for Christmas this year, and a sonic screwdriver last year, so idk, I might try going as eleven (I don’t trick or treat, I hand out candy in costume, and I will not be the one to tell teenagers, or even adults, that they’re too old for Halloween, you wear a costume, you get candy!)
Did anyone notice the curious incident of the undfreelandpantsonhishead returning so soon after bitterSteele was put on moderation? Coincidence? I doubt it.
Wait, Steele RETURNED? Someone fill me in!
Well, they both like teel-deers and whinging about their subpar looks and how it prevents them from pretty girl fun times….
Kittehs might be on to something.
I wondered about that myself. Isn’t und still on moderation himself, though?
Was undiesonhishead put on moderation? I thought he just flounced.
LBT, some douche calling himself bittersteel turned up a couple of days ago and was so VILE!!! that he got modded. Before that, he was sending out Mr Al vibes everywhere, including being too short to get noticed. I think Howard was the first to call him bitterSteele, but several people who were around during Mr Al’s/Steele’s days recognised him.
I’ve sent a “whaddya think?” email to the Dark Lord and lordlings (all two of us, lol) about it.
“This is literally the most self-centered thing I have ever read. ”
Also utterly unconnected with reality. Harris and Savile and the rest weren’t caught out ‘helping children’ – Harris deliberately targeted children and young women and *assaulted* them. Often he pretended he was just being ‘friendly’ but sticking your fingers inside a child’s underwear and worse is not being friendly. Harris would tongue kiss women, touch their breasts, run his hand up their legs up to their underwear and worse. How can this possibly happen accidentally when you’re helping a kid?
Unless you can’t help yourself from obscene assault when you console a lost child, you’re not at risk from being charged with obscene assault. It’s that simple.
MRAs – it’s all about them.
I seem to remember und being on moderation after about the first or second night (well, night for North America) he was here. I might have been wrong, or maybe he got time off for good behavior. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been mixed up, I’m afraid!
@argenti
Many of the playgrounds aren’t locked up after hours and they aren’t patrolled or anything, so if no kids are there you can swing away. I did a sunrise exercise bootcamp years ago and we worked out on a park jungle gym. But if they’re kids around, parents will usually ask adults not accompanying a child to leave.
Something that pleased me re: Harris – a store owner here in Melbourne, who had a Harris cartoon on his wall from the 1990s, waited for the verdict then blotted the thing out with red paint. Red, on a white wall. Not pretending it was never there, but making a statement – and he’d invited any victims of abuse who wanted to paint it out to join in. Don’t know if anyone took him up on it, but I’m glad he made the statement.