Thursday, 12 July 2007
Austerity measures

Today I was briefly transported to Ruritania. Ruritania, as I explain here, is a land where you find things that you don’t find anywhere else: the end of the Moebius strip, native speakers of Volapük, beggars making choices and that demmed elusive pimpernel.

 

In Ruritania, haystacks are full of easily accessible needles and pigs have wings. And in Ruritania, Lawrence Auster’s blog is funny. Rip-roaringly, side-splittingly funny. 

 

On my return to "dead, finished and kaput" Britain, soon to be "melted down...through tremendous suffering", the blog reverted to form – purple prose that somehow manages to be as dull as ditchwater. But one post made me laugh, something I thought impossible. He thinks – seriously thinks – that women shouldn’t have the vote:

Is it a sign of strength in the West that women can vote, hold political office, and be shapers of public opinion on political issues including matters of national security? Or is it a sign--and a cause--of a profound, perhaps fatal weakness?

There is much to be said for the view that affording women political rights (as distinct from the protection of their human rights, property rights, and civil rights) inevitably leads society in the direction of the Nanny State that we see in full bloom in today's Britain and Europe, leading ultimately to the end of national sovereignty and the onset of global governance.

Perhaps, then, women shouldn’t pay any tax. No taxation without representation, remember? How can you separate political rights from human rights, civil rights and property rights? To put it simply – and I am only a woman, so I don’t do complicated – if women can’t vote against a party that wants to take away their civil, human or property rights, how can these rights be guaranteed?

 

I do not have an agenda to take away women's political rights, as my views on the subject are not completely formed, and also we obviously have much more pressing issues facing us at this time.

 

Yes, like fighting an ideology that wants to take away women’s political rights.

 

You would think that a few women would have written in to express scorn and derision at this absurd idea. Perhaps they did, but female posters whose views are shown on this blog seem to be groupies or surrendered Stepford wives, who think he’s right.

 

In the Good Old Days, women didn’t have the vote. Nor did lunatics. 

Posted on 07/12/2007 8:26 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
12 Jul 2007
Send an emailEsmerelda Weatherwax

One of his sycophants says in response “. . . women's suffrage. None of the socialist schemes of the left in the 20th century would have passed without it”

Carefully forgetting that women’s suffrage came about in most western countries either at the same time or within a few years of universal male suffrage.

In the UK it was in 1918, mindful of the efforts made during the Great War, that suffrage was extended from male householders and landowners only to all men over 21, and women who were the wives of householders, householders in their own right, or graduates.  Universal female suffrage was achieved in 1928.

Auster and his minions could as well blame the ranks of working class men for this perceived swing to the left. I’m sure they will be working on that next.



12 Jul 2007
Rebecca Bynum
Mary, you're right. This is really too silly to merit response, but if  we're talking about civilization certainly one of its obvious measures is the equal treatment of women. I think it's also obvious that the status of women tends to vary inversely with the militarism of a society and so at a time of rising militarism in defense of civilization one would expect this kind of thing to be bantered about. Still...Christ on a crutch!! (as Hugh would say) I'd add more, but I'm too much of a lady.