17 Nov 2007
Carter
"Auster's world is looking more and more like an Islamic state."
Was the US "like an Islamic state" prior to 1920? Was Switzerland, prior to 1971?
While many do, conservatives who reject the modern liberal order aren’t obligated to support women’s suffrage.
18 Nov 2007
Laurium
Miss Jackson, you have so many good arguments to make when you choose to make them. This would seem like a perfect opportunity to put Mr. Auster in his place.
You could have argued the issue by pointing out that women are not mere "emotionalists" -- swayed by feelings more than thought.
Yet your first rhetorical weapon is taboo-maintenance: a fuzzy argumentum ad Hitlerum with that bit about disenfranchising the Jews.
George Wallace tried the same taboo-maintenance device (although not by appealing to Hitler) when discussing the Negro franchise and integrated education, by asking his audience whether they wanted Negroes to "marry their daughters". It is ultimately unpersuasive, Mary, and usually betrays an inability to rationally address real political questions.
First, you unintentionally support Mr. Auster's points of argument by failing to cite any examples of how the female franchise makes America (or any nation) a better and more secure country. The absence of any reasoned response (and by a woman!) inevitably reinforces Mr. Auster's arguments. Even the Suffragists of 1900 realized they had to make positive (although purely conjectural) arguments in favor of the female franchise. Surely there must be a hundred, a thousand, things you could point to as benefits of the female franchise.
Secondly, you support Mr. Auster's arguments by resorting to the very emotionalism that Mr. Auster uses as a reason to deny women the vote. He says that women are ill-equipped to deal rationally with political questions. And the logical force of your response is "Larry is a poopy-head!"
Please, Miss Jackson, say something positive for all voting women, something logically persuasive regarding the female franchise. Don't leave your post unmanned.
18 Nov 2007
Mary Jackson
On the contrary. It is not for me to argue why, in the absence of insanity, criminality or being underage, a rational human being and citizen of a nation should have the vote. Auster does not believe, however, that women are rational human beings, and thinks that, regardless of their intelligence, knowledge, business acumen, contribution - financial or otherwise - to the common good, age, wisdom and experience, they should be lumped in with the insane, minors and the irresponsible or immature - his categorisation of the unmarried.
This is not a serious position and does not merit a serious argument, anymore than I should have to argue why women should not be stoned to death for adultery, or why slavery should not be reintroduced.
It is as absurd to have to justify female franchise as it is to have to justify male franchise. Indignation, when someone talks of taking away my rights and turning me into a second class citizen, is in fact a rational response.
Neither you nor Auster have made the case as to why it is acceptable to deprive women of their political rights and not, for example, Jews, or anyone who votes in a way that Auster doesn't like. The analogy with Jews is exact. Jews tend to vote Democrat, and so do women. So, regardless of whether they will in fact vote Democrat, all Jews, and all women should be deprived of the vote. If one is right, so is the other.
Neither of you have addressed the "no taxation without representation" argument. Auster makes the absurd assertion that "Unmarried women as a whole [sic] inevitably look to the state to be their provider". On the contrary, unmarried women and very many married women pay tax - a lot of tax. Should they continue to pay tax, even if they have no say in how their money is spent, and the government is to be elected only by men, many of whom may well pay less tax than they do? (I and many other women pay more tax than most men.)
21 Nov 2007
James
What's your criterion for allowing someone to vote? You exclude children, criminals, and the insane. What makes these classes the exception to your rule?
