Men’s Rights Activists learned a long time ago that the easiest way to win an argument with someone is by playing the old straw man game, ignoring what they actually believe and instead pretending that they believe something much less defensible — and much easier to rebut.
Trouble is, when you’re actually debating one of these people directly, they may point out to you that they don’t actually believe what you claim they believe. And this makes it oh so much harder to win the argument.
Luckily, MRAs have found a workaround for this little difficulty. Instead of debating real feminists who can argue back, they debate imaginary ones who say only what the MRAs allow them to say.
One quick visit to a stock photo repository and hey, presto! You’ve got yourself the following memes depicting Straw Feminists Confused About Everything.
Er, what? Feminists have the power to ban hot babes from going out in public? Do these hot babes have to make themselves less hot before they can get a walking around permit from the Department of Jealous Feminists Who Won’t Let You Go Out if You’re Too Hot?
I think I may have posted this one before, but I still don’t quite understand it. Hey MRA dudes, you’re supposed to confuse the imaginary women in your memes, not the rest of us!
This dumb little cartoon, drawn in 2003 by a dude hoping to sell a few t-shirts, has provided MRAs with thirteen years’ worth of cheap outrage so far. Congrats, MRA meme-maker, for squeezing a little bit more outrage from its desiccated corpse.
I ain’t saying she’s a golddigger but, yes, you are saying that. Again. That song is more than a decade old. Move on, dudes.
@Viscaria:
Because admitting that America is like the only advanced nation on the planet that insists that poor people deserve to die and that even cancer has to turn a buck might make them realize that maybe that’s a terrible idea.
I take an absolute joy in fancy-pantsy poutines. I barely ever get to eat them too (Same situation as Viscaria, eh) but oh my gosh I mean just look guys
http://www.seriouseats.com/images/2015/03/20150327-poutine-close-up-joshua-bousel.jpg
That is just normals! What about spicy thai?
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/360746/slide_360746_4039283_compressed.jpg
Or Mexican with chorizo?
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/360746/slide_360746_4039286_compressed.jpg
Italian, maybe? With gnocchi?
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/360746/slide_360746_4039287_compressed.jpg
Or Irish, with Guiness and lamb?
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/360746/slide_360746_4039295_compressed.jpg
Or Tunisian?
http://i.huffpost.com/gadgets/slideshows/360746/slide_360746_4039296_compressed.jpg
C’mon, Dustin, don’t lie. Look at that. Just look at it. You want it.
@ binjabreel
It was noted after the Normandy landings that tall strong body types accounted for the majority of casualties (especially fatalities) whereas the wiry racing snake types came through just fine. Lots of factors, but the fact that fitter guys need more calories to perform at fullest potential seems to have played a part.
@Scildfreja
I want all of those.
Seeing as I’m suffering through uncontrolled allergies because the inhaler that worked last year doesn’t work this year (almost as though the climate in my area is changing), and the soonest I could get a regular checkup with my PCP was almost a month later, and after hours on the phone because at my last appointment the doctor’s office insisted my insurance was wrong and the insurance company insisted it was right, leaving me to pay for that appointment out of pocket, I’m not too worried about the spectre of socialized healthcare changing how things work.
(That’s not me complaining, btw. That’s the American system, with its stated goal of making the most profit possible by providing and paying for the fewest services possible, working as designed.)
Also, yelling about socialized health care demonstrates that you don’t know how insurance works.
The more people pitching money into the pool together, the lower everyone’s costs, because that’s exactly how insurance works. Everyone throws in five bucks, then since its rare for everyone to break their legs simultaneously there’s enough money to cover anyone when they break their leg.
So, naturally, the most sensible thing would be for EVERYONE to be in the same pool together, right? Then we’d smooth out the odds across the whole nation. Oh, but wait, then the 47(!) vice presidents of Blue Cross might not all be able to afford million dollar homes in the hills above Thousand Oaks, eh?
Also… Goddamnit now I need to find somewhere to buy poutine. This is as bad as when I want curry fries but the Irish pub that used to sell them is gone!
Canadians – could have had British culture, French cuisine, and American technology. Instead, you have American culture, British cuisine, and French technology – with a whole helping of Bolshevism in your “electoral” politics. You’re screwed, Canucks. Keep taking in terrorists and other assorted enemies of Western Civilization and we’ll see how long you like that multi-culti gobbledygook. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. My kind will be like Kings and Lords and the time comes, when warlike people such as myself put our natural skills to the test and the true ugly face of humanity that liberalism have been trying to hide for decades breaks through the thin veneer that you’ve been trying to force onto it.
Despite living my entire life nearly shouting distance from our Canadian neighbors, I have never had poutine. But OMG do I want it NOW.
@Dustin
Not losing sleep over it, I wish, see previous, and I don’t find poutine appetizing, respectively
And there it is, the perfect encapsulation of Dustin’s whole commentary and of the cornucopia of… colorful characters this blog deals with. ‘It’s not happening to me literally all the time, therefore it doesn’t exist. Other people? Blah! Institutional misogyny is bullshit, cos in fact, it’s quite equal where I am now. Students do something unorthodox at a bake sale that 1 time? MISANDRY!!1!!
For most people, in most cases, empathy isn’t a trait. It’s a skill. It can be trained and honed, just as much as wilderness survival or ledge climbing, or whatever else it is you assume ‘leftists’ could/would never do cos reasons
And PS (pedantic snark), it’s spelled ‘wreck’ or ‘rek’. Why get rid of the unnecessary ‘w’ but keep the unnecessary ‘c’? ‘Wrecked’ and ‘rekt’, see…
@Alan Robertshaw
Galileo was in the .001 percent that was laughed at and happened to be right; it’s entirely conceivable (and I’d say inevitable) that global warming “denialism” belongs also to that .001 percent of things that get laughed at, but are right on the money.
And the “97%” stat is bullshit:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2015/01/06/97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong/#4c48be4d7187
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425232/climate-change-no-its-not-97-percent-consensus-ian-tuttle
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303480304579578462813553136
Leftists are all alike, herd animals that make appeals to majority and appeals to authority instead of relying on their own reasoning. Of course, if you did any of that, you would seize to be leftists, but I digress.
And Scildfreja eviscerates with a smile. Brilliantly done.
Dustin, my man, just admit you got thoroughly outclassed instead of trying to change the subject. Cowardice is not a good look.
WWTH said:
EXACTLY.
And to EJ(The Other One) and Scildfreja, thank you for being among the generous in spirit souls who paid attention in kindergarten and not only learnt the value of sharing, but took it seriously. Whether it’s a package of cookies divvied up among a classroom, or essential life services made universally affordable by economies of scale, I don’t understand why comparatively few of my fellow citizens seem to have mastered this basic precept of making the human condition more bearable.
Oh gosh, I hope that wasn’t actually eviscerating! I wasn’t trying to be mean.
Because you haven’t seen me being mean…
http://i.imgur.com/liPxx.gif
I love how Mammotheers employ a variety of different troll busting tactics suited to our own personalites. The troll can never develop a good defense because some of us are chewing them up and spitting them out, some are killing them with kindness and patience. Some write lengthy replies with cites. Others just mock. But nobody ever stoops to the level of threats or bigoted remarks, so no matter how much of a chew toy we make out of them, they can’t claim the moral high ground.
The poor trolls are helpless to resist the multi pronged attack. They don’t even know what to do.
We rock 🙂
Hahaha I meant eviscerates in the “thoroughly dismantles without even a scratch of a hope of putting it back together” sense. But with a smile, of course.
I have a feeling if you went mean, there’d be nothing but a crater left.
edit: and that’s why I keep coming back here to (mostly) lurk, WWTH. Great community who can roll with the punches and dish it out as well without ruining the atmosphere.
@Dustinzeit
I tried this the reasonable way and you decided that first you were going to leave, and then you came back and simply got less predictable with respect to topics. So I’m going to ratchet up rhetoric up a bit and if you decide you want to be less intense let me know. I can control these things and am always willing to expand on what I say.
.
Of course nothing is free, who claimed anything here was free? I’m fucking serious, who? This is all based on primate psychology and evolution and that has to do with the group surviving, not the individual. So if an individual in the group has far more resources than they need to survive and others are suffering, guess who we go to? If it were not for the group that individual would not even exist and EVERY individual gets help from the group, especially in today’s world.
Too fucking bad. If you don’t want to help the group and the group has provided you with benefits that made the randomness of existence work out in our favor better, the group gets to expel you and abandon you like a piece of rancid meat.
I want an example of the reading you do on climate change. What you are describing bears very little resemblance to what I have read and I suspect that “reck everything” has some more detail to it than you are alluding to here.
Do you have an example? A specific quote from a poster here?
Because I thought of a similar thing to say to you in reference to global warming, that science used by scientists has granted an understanding of the world that is also predicting a warming earth and yet you are perfectly happy to use computers and all manner of other things we have produced with the same process. But my challenge has one less complication. You have [capitalism] > [technology], when it’s the scientific method used by people that is more directly tied to the technology, and you seem to have a problem with scientists that you are unable to get specific about.
If you are willing to get specific about how capitalism has produced technology, I’ll get specific about how science has produced the global warming data.
Where did climate change come from? Was there actually a connection back there somewhere, or did Dustin really just spew that out of nowhere, like ink into the water?
Also, I can’t help but notice that “Government” seems to be a bad word amongst the right, yet here you all are, using technology granted to you by the government, driving on roads built by the government and such to make your quote-unquote “Points” (to which I say, FACEPALM!).
Aww. Looks like Dustin mantrumed all day long, but he was in moderation so nobody saw it. Poor baby!
I’m not fully caught up with the thread, so apologies (to other Mammotheers, not the troll.) if I repeat points others have made already.
You don’t even know what country IP is in, yet you imagine you know more about its healthcare system than they do? I think the bullshit you smell is just the scent of your own ignorance blowing back in your face.
That’s not much different than we pay when you combine state and federal taxes. We actually already have enough revenue to have Medicare for all with everyone paying into it. The need for subsidizing private insurance and the need for Medicaid and CHIPS and Tricare would go away. Public hospitals would no longer have to absorb the cost of patients with no or substandard care. Medicare for all would be the most efficient option for us by far. At 2-3% it has a much lower administrative cost than any private health insurance. There would be far less bureaucracy if everyone had the same coverage, so that would bring down costs. Having the largest possible pool (the whole country) would hold down the amount required for everyone to pay into the system.
Stop saying that socialized healthcare is expensive and bad because you know it is. You’ve offered no evidence for your claims. You’ve not even made a good argument to back it up. You’re just regurgitating right wing talking points. You don’t know anything about anything and you are just embarrassing yourself trying to spar with us at this point. Seriously. I’d almost feel bad for you if weren’t for this
gross little racist dog whistling.
BTW, you cannot buy beer with food stamps. It’s not even physically possible for a cashier to use a customer’s EBT to ring up alcohol or cigarettes, even if he or she wanted to. Once again, you clearly have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
The delusion is strong with this one. Which wars have you been in, Dusty? Something tells me it’s been none and you’re just fantasizing about a world in which you’re an Ubermenschen. Let me tell you, dear. It’s not going to happen. Civilization will continue to march on without you and you’ll be left in the dust, throwing tantrums. Reactionaries are always making these kinds of dire predictions every time a group that isn’t rich, white, male, and cishet make a little progress. They never come to pass.
I’ll leave here for now, but I’ll check and see what are in your global warming denialism links. The National Review is not worth even a glance at. But I’ll check the Forbes and WSJ ones. I expect they’ll be editorials rather than solid scientific reporting, but perhaps you will pleasantly surprise me.
@SFHC
http://i.imgur.com/r73VJe3.gif
@Dustin
http://i.imgur.com/3sxgvwq.gif
Okay, Forbes won’t let me read without turning off my ad blocker. Someone else will have to take that one on.
And the WSJ one is behind a paywall. However, it does display the very beginning of the article and it’s categorized as “commentary.” I thought so.
Any scientific sources or at least good scientific reporting, Dustbin?
Ong, you guys! HE SAID THE THING!
Government minimizes the chances of your abode catching on fire from bad electrical work. Government keeps the trash off the road and the billboards from crowding out every inch of the sky. Government tries to keep you from breathing poison in the air and drinking it in your water. Government is the reason you have electricity and running water. If your house catches on fire, government will come to put it out for you.
Sometimes these functions are compromised, usually because of free riders. Some of them are ordinary dweebs like Dustin, who don’t want to pay for the services they receive. Some of the free riders are industries that think your lungs are less important than that extra dollar of externality-wrung profit. Sometimes they are politicians who are happy to accept government services themselves while cutting it off for the less fortunate.
You never notice all the things government does for you, every day, until suddenly it’s not working properly anymore.
@Brony
Details, as in ‘global warming’ is anthropic and will lead to the polar ice-caps deltic, higher sea-levels, the spread of diseases, more natural disasters, mass extinction, you know what I’m talking about. You don’t know what people will do for power; I’m content to suggest that this whole thing is either a manufactured crisis that the government is using to justify expanding its powers, or it’s possible that scientists are using to snag more grant money – hell, it’s probably both! Scientists do these things all the day, remember when scientists worked for Hitler?
I’ll deal with the rest later.
@SFHC
The government is absolutely unnecessary when it comes to creating this technology. Capitalism can do just fine, and a lot of this was created because the government wanted to oppose soviet communism. We don’t need the government to provide incentives for people to create new technologies when we can rely on investors, and I’ve only ever used roads before because I’ve been forced to; the state owns all the roads.
I’ll write a reply after dinner or something. Dustin, I am disappointed in you.
EDIT: Should I get upset about this? I don’t know yet.