For those who have missed the kerfuffle, Phyllis Schlafly will be speaking the Washington University in St. Louis (WUSTL)commencement and will receive an honourary degree from the school. Yes, this has provoked outrage; modern college women are upset because they feel as if Mrs. Schlafly does not represent their values:
Do her views fit with the future the men and women of Wash U’s graduating class see for themselves and their peers? Probably not. Then why honor her with them? Wouldn’t having someone like her in the midst of Wash U’s female graduates be incongruous at best, offensive at worst?
Well, sweeties, why not read Mrs. Schlafly’s bio? She earned a college degree from WUSTL at the age of 19 - in 1944! She then earned a Masters in Government from Radcliffe College in 1945. By any sane standard, Mrs. Schlafly is a maverick and an inspiration for feminists who care about women in education. As a Master’s from one of the most prestigious universities in the country was not enough for Mrs. Schlafly, she went back to earn a J.D. from WUSTL in 1978. She began her law school career scarcely three years after Title IX was passed and eleven years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Is that really a woman who is anything but an inspiration to young women who are about to receive a university degree from a fine institution? What “values” are shared by university women that she does not hold dear - and has not demonstrated that she holds dear?
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McCain is kowtowing to the enviro-mental-cases. He advocates for a “cap-and-trade” system whereby each plant has a set amount of permissible pollution. This system is fundamentally flawed, for several reasons:
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There is no just way to allocate credits. If a plant is performing badly, it will get more credits than one that is already clean. It may be much costlier to reduce emissions from a clean plant by 10% than a dirty plant by 50%, although the company that does the latter will be in a better economic position.
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It ignores the economic reality that it is much easier to build something new and green than to retrofit something to be green.
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It creates a cartel whereby existing companies can prevent new ones from coming onto the market - even if those new factories are significantly cleaner than their competitors. A business owner need only refuse to let a newcomer purchase emissions credits, and the newcomer will not be able to operate a plant. This will happen, even if the new plant is cleaner and will produce better environmental results than the one it replaces. (See #2.)
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It creates an unnatural monopoly. The ability to pollute is not something like the creation of a railroad line or a telephone pole, which is somewhat monopolistic in its existence. It makes sense to regulate railroads, energy lines, and telephone lines, as it is horribly inefficient to let people build zillions of parallel railroad tracks, power lines, and telephone poles for the sake of creating a “free market” in the relevant goods. McCain’s proposal, although it has that “buy, sell, broker, cost/benefit analysis” look of a free market, actually undermines a properly-functioning free market. The government, through its initial allocation of carbon credits, imposes an additional cost upon each company, which is unrelated to the cost of doing business, polluting, or cleaning up pollution. Businesses may then impose costs upon each other by refusing to sell the credits, except for an exhorbitantly high cost. The “supply” part of “supply and demand” is fixed: for obvious reasons, you can’t increase the supply of carbon credits without making the whole system utterly idiotic.
McCain, McCain… please, just stop this nonsense. Ask people to plant trees… or face up to the reality that the earth is actually cooling down, despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.
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The Boston Globe brings out the tears for people who bought houses that they cannot afford (here). First of all, the monthly payments should be affordable, not budget-straining, so any increase in interest rates would result in belt-tightening, not foreclosure. Second, if the house was unaffordable when it was appraised at $700,000 in a good market, it isn’t any less affordable when appraised at $500,000 in a bad market. The current market value of a home does not change whether or not the mortgage is affordable, just whether or not it is a financially good idea. If it doesn’t make financial sense to keep the house, tough luck: the buyer gets the benefit of an upswing in the market (by selling the house at a profit, potentially) and pays for that with the risk of a downturn (whereby the she would have to sell at a loss). Now, the market value of a house only matters when… drum roll… wait for it… the house is on the market. If you aren’t selling your house, it does not matter, financially, whether it is valued at $700,000 or $400,000. So this is complete and total b.s. that a change in the housing market makes these homes unaffordable.
Third, and most importantly, two groups pay for these irresponsible people: responsible homeowners who will see an increase in their interest rates to cover foreclosure, and renters who are blocked out of the housing market by less financially stable, but irresponsible, homeowners, and, of course, the rising interest rates on mortgages to pay for the financial irresponsibility. Notice how wrongdoing and irresponsibility do not correlate to financial burdens.
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Well said across the board, Ms. deLuca. Too bad the knee-jerk liberalism will dis someone like Schafley. And doubly bad for McCain’s silliness.
Phyllis Schlafly has values, which would mean that she probably doesn’t share the values of the young “ladies” that would complain about her being honored. In fact, the values (if any) that the young “ladies” of WUSTL possess are probably consistent with the government mandates that productive and responsible members of society clean up after those that are less than responsible.
McCain should fight global warming by shutting up and capping his own CO2 emissions.
Thank you, Neil.
Sam,
Ditto to that.
I considered adding some snark about abortion - how, obviously, Mrs. Schlafly did not need to abort her unborn child to achieve her prominence and education - but decided against it. You are absolutely right, though; the fact that she has moral values distinguishes her from those who believe that a lack of moral values is empowering to women. (Sadly, though, the womyn’s studies’ set are doing the work of the patriarchy for them: nothing like ensuring that women can’t get married, have to abort to get an education, and can’t find stable, kind, moral men to ensure that they won’t live their lives to the fullest and achieve their goals.)
ROFL to the last line.
Ive seen a lot of quotes from Phyllis Schlaffly over the decades, and there’s one I can agree with:
“Men should stop treating feminists like ladies, and instead treat them like the men they say they want to be.”
Phyllis Schlafly
Men that treat me like “one of the guys” are a lot easier company to take than men who think they “know what a woman really wants”.
Like those condescending old men who call you “honey” or “Darlin” and pat you on the butt…and insist that they are just being “complimentary” Phyllis can have ‘em!
‘course, most of ‘em are probably dead of old age by now…
Teresa,
Much as those chauvanists who want easy sexual access to women hide behind the flags of the modern liberal movement, men who pat women on the behinds are hiding behind the conservative movement. Every single conservative man I know considers such actions to be revolting and would not hesitate to criticise the men who engage in those actions - and would not let them hide behind the banner of “those feminists have no sense of humour.”
Again, Mrs. Schlafly was the original Rosie the Riveter; she tested out machine guns to put herself through college during WWII. I’m not sure how much more “feminist” or “unladylike” you want them, but I think that is sufficient data to undermine any stereotypes you may have acquired of women who consider themselves ladies.
I’ll leave you with this. When I first moved to the South, I thought much like you did. I was quickly disabused of that notion when I went shopping for a small chest of drawers. As I walked out of the store, carrying my newly-acquired furniture, a middle-aged man asked if he could help me. No, no, I’m quite capable. The woman next to him told me that, Ma’am, you must let Larry help; he won’t take no for an answer. Fine, fine; I handed over my purchase to Larry. On the way out to the parking lot, while I felt entirely superfluous, he said, “My ma is beyond eighty, can’t see, can’t hear, but if she ever knew that I let a lady carry something like this and didn’t offer to help, why, she would have me over her knee and whelp me.”
There is a fundamental difference between ingrained respect for women and ingrained chauvanism. They both take many forms, on both sides of the political aisle. Personally, I’m thoroughly tired of the men who tell me that it’s my right as a modern women to have sex with them, without committment, and abort a child if I happen to get pregnant. I’ll take the men who offer to carry my furniture, thanks.
Roxeanne,
You moved to a different “south” that I did, then. There were plenty of fine people, but WAAAY more dirty old men.
I suspect this might have something to do with our generation gap.
Schlaffly had many fine personal accomplishments, but she made her nut publicly singing the “Kinder Kuche Kirche” song for all women except herself. While I’d never call myself a feminist, I certainly wouldn’t call her one either.
Of course, I think that Schlafly should definatly speak at the University. Sure, some people may be outraged…outrage alone is not a sufficient reason to cancel a speaker, and it will be good for feminists on campus to hear what Schlafly says. Maybe they will re-focus away from worrying if it is spelled “womyn” or “woman”, and be reminded what their mission was.
While were at it, when is Liberty University going to show some courage in the face of outrage and invite Dawkins to speak about Biology? Heh. Now, talk about “knee-jerk” reactions.
Teresa,
Probably. I moved to the South where men seem to like women.
In another generation gap, I had to look up “Kinder Kuche Kirche.” I know that “Kinder” means “child,” in part because my paediatrician was very aptly named Dr. Kinder.
I think that Mrs. Schlafly has five children, but, IIRC, she did the housewife thing before she did the political thing.
True story.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on Ms. Schlafly. I’m OK with that, she will hopefully live to a ripe old natural age and finally pass away as all things do.
Women get to have birth control and don’t have to listen to her tell them it’s their lack of virtue that gets them sexually harrassed at work, and I’m sure that someone will name a lovely creation museum after her. Everybody wins.
I was wondering if I could ask a favor. Could you provide a link if you are going to quote from my blog?
Duh! Sorry! I just realized that the quote was from my comment above! obviously, I was too tired out from an early morning, a day of yardwork, lifting, and Kung Fu to keep things sorted!
Well, if you are interested, I blogged about my thoughts on Schlafly ar my blog rather than clutter yours anymore.