Women's Right to Vote, the Beginning of the End for America?

Chico Enterprise Record ^ | 3/29/09 | OneVike

[OneVike]

From the day the founding Fathers risked their liberty and life by signing the Declaration of Independence, there has been those who have wanted to sink this great ship called the United States of America. Well 143 years later the good ship America took a torpedo hit that at the time seemed like just another glancing blow. What many still consider the greatest step forward in equality for the sexes, was more then just a glancing blow however. It was in fact a deadly strike that entered the very heart of the ship and has been smoldering since. The damage caused by the 19th amendment was slow in its destruction, but after almost 100 years we can now see how complete the destruction really was.

[ventana]

This whole conversation is so patently illogical and therefore false, that a I must keep coming back to it. The analogy you present, and you are simply parroting the others who would deny women the vote, has to be brought full circle. Most blacks vote democratic, ipso facto, most blacks should not have the vote. Most Catholics vote democratic, ipso facto, most Catholics should not have the vote. That is the argument all of you are presenting and I will fight it to the end exposing it for what it is: stupidity and bigotry. That's not my Republican party. Further, we can win on ideas, but we have to do a much better job of presenting those ideas. I'm not afraid of that. Why are the girly men here afraid? And by extension, their cowering women. I won't be that kind of a boot licker. Fearing the left and reacting by taking a giant step back in time is tantamount to fearful bootlicking: say, I know, maybe if we take a way a woman's right to vote, maybe then we can win.

We can win on our ideas and by explaining those ideas in a compelling way; that's how Ronald Reagan did it, and that's how we can do it. Scaredy Cats. Bah! V's wife.

[Nea Wood]

I’m female. I agree with your wife 100%.

[Las Vegas Ron]

What post number was it so I can see the context and what it was in response to?

[ga medic]

Post # 22.

[Las Vegas Ron]

However, one of the worst developments has been the influx of liberals into the main stream media, shows such as Ophra,

Yes indeed, but you can add government education (oxymoron, I know) to that mix, I know you meant to.

It is the early indoctrination that lays the basis for shows like that to succeed and unfortunately, the future of our country as well.

[ventana]

Your post is so riddled with illogical statements, I can't begin to respond. Citing the fact that you are half black, as though that had one whiff of impact on the validity of your argument, doesn't-it doesn't add to or detract from any statement of fact made as an effort to establish a proposition. Huck Finn did not advance notions about blacks? C'mon the majority of newspapers of the day were horrified by the progressive ideas posited in Huck Finn. Whether Twain himself regarded newspapers well is besides the point. The point goes back to your original assertion that writings in that day and age were not, in essence, progressive. They were, "manly" and not open to females, for instance, and to the notion of female suffrage. But you are not right on that. You suggested that over a hundred years ago manly men were in control and were decisevely not progressive about women.

Let's let Mr. Twain speak for himself about the certainty of your position, as he, himself, was if anything not certain, in flux, and, progressive as I contended:

SUFFRAGE (Women's right to vote) Over the years, Mark Twain changes his mind about female suffrage: I think I could write a pretty strong argument in favor of female suffrage, but I do not want to do it. I never want to see the women voting, and gabbling about politics, and electioneering. There is something revolting in the thought. It would shock me inexpressibly for an angel to come down from above and ask me to take a drink with him (though I should doubtless consent); but it would shock me still more to see one of our blessed earthly angels peddling election tickets among a mob of shabby scoundrels she never saw before. - Letter to St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867 Women, go your ways! Seek not to beguile us of our imperial privileges. Content yourself with your little feminine trifles -- your babies, your benevolent societies and your knitting--and let your natural bosses do the voting. Stand back -- you will be wanting to go to war next. We will let you teach school as much as you want to, and we will pay you half wages for it, too, but beware! we don't want you to crowd us too much. - Letter to St. Louis Missouri Democrat, March 1867 Our marvelous latter-day statesmanship has invented universal suffrage. That is the finest feather in our cap. All that we require of a voter is that he shall be forked, wear pantaloons instead of petticoats, and bear a more or less humorous resemblance to the reported image of God. He need not know anything whatever; he may be wholly useless and a cumberer of the earth; he may even be known to be a consummate scoundrel. No matter. While he can steer clear of the penitentiary his vote is as weighty as the vote of a president, a bishop, a college professor, a merchant prince. We brag of our universal, unrestricted suffrage; but we are shams after all, for we restrict when we come to the women. - "Universal Suffrage" speech delivered to the Monday Evening Club about 1875. Reprinted in Mark Twain: A Biography, edited by A. B. Paine At home, a standing argument against woman suffrage has always been that women could not go to the polls without being insulted. The arguments against woman suffrage have always taken the easy form of prophecy. The prophets have been prophesying ever since the woman's rights movement began in 1848 -- and in forty-seven years they have never scored a hit. - Following the Equator I know that since the women started out on their crusade they have scored in every project they undertook against unjust laws. I would like to see them help make the laws and those who are to enforce them. I would like to see the whiplash in women's hands. - quoted in The New York Times, January 21, 1901

Mary, It's always best to go to the source, don't you think? V's wife. Good night.

[Desdemona]

I know quite a number of emotional men. At the same time, I would gladly surrender my right to cancel out their votes if my "sisters" out there couldn't cancel out the non-emotional ones.

And, yes, this is a hornet's nest.

[Las Vegas Ron]

Thanks

[marychesnutfan]

You said:

“She states she is not for the Taliban, and, in effect, says, well, really I am for their less radical brethren. In using the Taliban as a comparative, she introduces the whole of Islam, with the Taliban being cited as the extreme. Saying women “have gotten too much control in the west,” that women “need to be put back some,” the logical deduction is she views the treatment of the women in Muslim countries favorably, although she will not go so far as to embrace the extreme wing of Muslimism: the Taliban. V’s wife.”

You can quit taking leaps and assumptions. I was NOT “introducing the whole of Islam.” I have SEEN radical Islam in Pakistan and what extremes are there. It is very frightening and very, very, VERY far from America. You want stories, I can give you some. And the Taliban is a fringe or twist off of Islam though that doesn’t excuse it one iota. I personally believe Christianity is the summit of it all and I came to this not because I inherited it. I got Athiesm pure from my mother who grew up in Nazi Germany and is as amoral as you can get (and an Obamanation supporter too).

And hey, I spent 10 years in the Air Force and left honorably when idiotic Clinton changed some rules back in ‘94 that would have put women closer to the front. I was not willing to set foot back in the middle east as a woman soldier and as then a Jew as was on my dog tags at the time. Combat is a place for MEN and men only. I’d be in now if I could be assured of never being sent over there.

When I said women need to be put back some I meant just that. Woman-like, you wrote all sorts of assumptions into my words but man-like I meant just what I said. Women don’t need to be everywhere they are, most don’t need to be working (opening another can of worms here I realize with you).

Heck, let’s open this up -
When women flooded into the work-force in the 1970’s most didn’t need to work, they worked for “fulfillment” or to be honest for just plain greed. All the money that was then poured into the economy lifted many wants into necessities with the result that we have people thinking they are entitled to a 3,500 square foot house for 1 or 2 people even if they can’t afford it. And then men, seeing women wanting to “have it all” and work, many have quit marrying the women and we have lots of nice “poor” single mothers raising children who do not know what a father is.

[Jukeman]

The list is so long it is easy to leave some out. Government intervention into education is as big or bigger than any of the other reasons but they are all part of the progressive movement - abortion, secularism, and on and on and on.

[marychesnutfan]

You do keep quoting from NEWSPAPERS of all things...

But you have clearly revealed yourself as true blue liberal and I am done arguing with you as that gets one nowhere.

[ventana]

I was a stay at home mother who left a career at the height of my success in the field of television. I made a lot of money and walked away from it all to raise my children. We have had financial setbacks because of my decision. We don't regret the decision, at all.

That many women work because of some ridiculous pursuit of self fulfillment while abandoning the responsibilities they have to the children they bore in a covenant with their spouse and between God is lamentable.

But Mary, again you lapse into another logical fallacy: it's called a Red Herring. In other words, introducing another topic.

Again, good night. And thank you for your service. V's wife

[disclaimer]

Many native American cultures recognized that men were driven by their hormones. They established that post menopausal women should make the major decisions for the tribe because they were the most rational and least likely to be hormone driven.

Let me guess, your source for this tidbit is a womyns' study textbook. Assuming you have a source for your statement.

[ventana]

Absolutely correct. V’s wife.

[Desdemona]

Men, meanwhile, kindly invented washing machines, machines of all types freeing women from labor.

Um, the dishwasher was actually invented by a woman because the hired help regularly broke her good china while she was entertaining.

The others, I'd have to look up. The only one I know was invented by a man was the blender and it had something to do with his wife not being able to chew food due to disease.

[Las Vegas Ron]

You know, I started a lengthy reply to her regarding that post. I didn't know it was you she was speaking of nor what post number it was so didn't have the context or what the response was to.

I got about half way through and decided, nah, what's the use.

It's very difficult to argue with someone who is completely reactionary and has a chip on their shoulder.

You handled it well, and thank you for your service!!

[OneVike]

You are an interesting complex individual. If this was 1920 and the amendment was on the ballot right now, I must admit that it is women like you I would have a hard time denying the right to vote for,

As my daughter would say, "You go girl!"

[marychesnutfan]

You keep saying Good Night and keep posting, heh, heh, heh!!

My topic is not a red herring. Women couldn’t have flooded into the work force as they did without feminism and the 60’s and the 60’s and feminism couldn’t have come about without the baby boom as a result of WWII and advances in medicine that allowed for such a large generation of especially, women. And on and on back you go, decade by decade, to women getting the vote and you can go back further I argue.

You said earlier that America was always big on women being important and assumed that it meant they were pushing equality or thought of it. They did not, at least the men did not.

To be honest this whole feminism crud comes from single women who never got a man, those not interested in men and those who were or are unhappily married.

It is a fact I don’t know if anyone else is willing to speak or admit. It is heresy to say it aloud today but that doesn’t make it one whit less true.

And those unhappy women now vote and look where we are.....

[ansel12]

“Arizona was the first state to give women the right to vote. Even before the 19th amendment.”

---

Not even close.

[Desdemona]

I hate to be the one to break this to you both, but the "progressives" of the 20th century (Steinbeck, Hemingway, Miller, James, etc. There were several) had a running bet to see who could write the most depressing material. And, yes, it was meant to change public opinion.

Great literature? More like a PR campaign.