it really has to be a balancing act, or a checks and balancing act, or whatever you want to call it. Unlike the case with Bushism and the fundamentalist/fascist versions of Republicanism and their enablers in the media this question isn't really black and white.

and if they are successful in their military endeavors many of them wish to use the cultural and political influence that that success would create to advance fundamentalist rule in the larger society. The fact that they have lost ground rather than gained it in this because of the Iraq debacle explains a lot of their "disillusionment" with Bush. So there is a mutual estrangement between the military and the larger society.

and the fact of the matter is that a good part of the military shared an interest with Bush in SEPARATING the military from the rest of the country. If the separation hadn't been present they would never have been allowed into Iraq. It would be interesting to know, for instance, who in military supports (and doesn't support) the news blackout of returning coffins and other techniques for manipulating public perception.

the US military is not remotely qualified, or capable of becoming qualified, to be the worlds policeman. The only way "world policing" has any possibility of doing any good is when it is truly internationalized in both theory AND PRACTICE.

this is exactly what does happen, just in a slightly (but only slightly) different context.

it doesn't make me feel less than human. No doubt extensive research would reveal that my reaction would be entirely different had I not lived my entire life swaddled in patriarchial privilidge.

If this is all that is really going on it often isn't made very clear. (It also doesn't explain all the ongoing feminist efforts to control/ban expressions of sexuality that don't involve them i.e strippers, prostitution, porn, etc.)

it HAS to be true, because if if were not the sex drives of men would be as low those of women. WHAT OTHER EXPLANATION COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE

(even teenagers who have never had sex and men (this is relatively rare of course) who have been in horrible relationships or been abused intuitively know that (almost all) women are absolutely wonderful and thus they experience a higher sex drive than women even when they have not experienced this wonderfulness personally) so in fact the vast difference in the sex drives of men and women is exactly equivalent, and in fact is caused by, the fact that women are vastly superior than men in virtually all aspects of human relations. What other explanation could there be.

telling women they are as lusty as men (in the absence of patriarchal abuse of course) is supposed to make women HAPPY! Men just can't win.

Agreed. I was absolutely surprised by every word.

and men are not designed to take a serious ongoing emotional or social interest in women who have no sexual interest in them. So what is to be done?

this is not the whole story. The CONSEQUENCES of sex may be more costly for women, but the ATTAINMENT of sex is much MUCH more costly for men, so if it were only about guaranteed orgams men would never go to the trouble of having sex with women at all. Masturbation is guaranteed and free, why bother with women. It's funny that you use this argument actually since I have heard plenty of women talking about how masturbation is a good substitute for sex with a man but I have NEVER heard of any man SERIOUSLY claiming that it was a satisfying substitute for sex with a woman.

but men want them anyway.

even though the consequences have been reduced by about 95%

Of course not, but far fewer women than men are willing to take what is available and there really are only two possibilities:

1) Men are inferior so fewer women want men than men want women

2) Women are pickier (or to put it another way they want different things)

there may be equal suffering, but men are far more willing to take women as they are (and they are, contrary to feminist dogma "women do all the work in relationships" blah blah balh, a HUGE pain in the ass) than women are willing to take men as they are and it gets REALLY annoying when this fact is used to argue, or more often, imply, that men are either inferior or priviliged when it is neither: it is biology (interestingly enough biology apparently isn't a taboo subject when it is used to explain or justify the preferences of women, only when men use it to expalin their own).

which is exactly the point: ANY woman with a pussy can find SOMEONE (if she wants to).

at least you admit that men have lower standards; this is better than claiming that womens' lack of interest is due to male inferiority. It's an easy question to answer actually: they are set by nature and actually it is very similar to the reasons why women can't just shut their pie holes and lose weight when their weight is causing them all kinds of problems (yes I know there are fat men too, but there wouldn't be if they all knew there would be tons of women interested in them if they would lose weight. Why do you think out of the closet fat gay men are practically non existent)

there seem to be two female approaches to this:

1)Men are, or should be/would be like women if the patriarchy hadn't ruined them/they weren't lazy/obnoxious/stupid

2)Women are fine the way they are and all the burdens of any conflict should be borne by men and would be if the patriarchy weren't conspiring against women. Where's the guilt.