So, Louis, my whole response didn't fit into one letter, so i published the first part, and as i was getting ready to publish the second part, i really started to dwell on this:

"If you read the feminine mystique, you'll see that Friedan didn't invent anything, and the problem has a very simple solutions -- women, just like men, should have the choice to work outside the home."

Friedan got a lot of (troublesome) communist indoctrination. And, listening to your nonsense, I wonder if she shouldn't have been hit in the fuckin' mouth herself.

I really am not sure what to make of this. Advocating punching a person (male or female) for writing a book and making an argument for a particular set of convictions...is...backward and retrograde don't really seem to be harsh enough for what i think of that. Maybe you have a lot more repressed anger at women than you are willing to admit to. Plus, the connotations of hitting a woman for expressing her opinion are quite strong -- it is in the best traditions of wife beaters and people who generally do not have a concept of respeting words and living without violence and not picking on people physically weaker than themselves.

Your penchant for violence is disturbing, and I really don't understand why it's so hard for you to refrain from insulting me or advocating violence. It is really so difficult to come up with cogent arguments to defend your beliefs?

I mean, the more i think about it, the more i am trying to figure out, where and what kind of environment did you grow up in and continue to live in, that you think saying such a thing is at all appropriate? I really can't understand what kind of mentality makes people say that kind of thing, unless your violent and incredibly sexist.

If anything, I'd say white women (like LeCastor) don't hear or respect their position enough in their "Desperate Housewives" hunt for "good sex".

Actually, I don't have a TV, i've never seen desperate housewives. Stop assuming stupid shit about me. I rent dvds through netflix -- i really like Deadwood, the show. Lots of cursing. :)

And "self-actualization" is another New Age buzzword. (Starting to see the problem yet?) Like the Eastern concept of "enlightenment", it doesn't exist and is a self-made problem that only leads to chasing your own tail while, angrily, dissing others for not doing the same. I don't have to "find myself": I'm right here.

When you mentioned Enlightenment earlier, i thought you were talking about the 18th century philosophical movement (voltaire, etc.), not the eastern kind.

As I said, it's insidious, and dangerous, and even intelligent and seemingly reasonable people have been taken in by it's call. That's why I've brought it up here: my wife, to me, is a smart, working, college-educated woman who made a good salary who, still, fell for the lure of "self-actualization" and narcissism and the inticement of what's possible instead of what's probable. Learning that doesn't make me a bad guy or unstable - or her terrible even - New Age subverts the thinking process just enough to destroy our societal connections so the likes of Deepak Choprah, Andrew Wiel, Uri Gellar, and all the other con men and con women (Silvia Browne. Oprah.) can gain influence and smile their beatific smiles all the way to the bank.

I really don't understand why you keep conflating New Age stuff and feminism. I'm a pretty hardcore feminist, but i am not into new age things at all, and never have been. They're separate issues, and if you conflate them, you set up unnecessary red herrings.

-- Louis Dixon

Don't get angry at me, Louis. You said it, not me. Maybe you should do some self-assessment and figure out where this completely offensive idea came from. Though this may explain why your wife left you. (ouch, i know, but you haven't been very nice either, dear).

Just remember, Lou, keep hitting those uppity women in the "fuckin mouth". That's the way to be credible and win friends.

Matthew & Kalliope -- great posts. though i have to disagree on Hirshman. I think she makes some excellent points about the need for change at home in relation to housework, etc.

Louis,

You said previously something to the effect of "i'm already the best me i will ever be." I don't know how old you are, but don't you think it's pretty arrogant to assume that you will not grow and change, that you will jsut stay statically the same guy for the rest of your life? What's the point of having travelling, like you say you do, of reading, of debating others, if not to learn more and to change? I'm pretty young, and i realize that i will grow and change, i hope this continues until i die. I don't think there's a point i will reach at some age at which i will stop changing. I don't want that to happen. If there were such a point, and you reach it, like you say you have, what do you do after? Where do you go from there? just continue floating on your plateau until you die?

Lawless lawyer, you're absolutely corrent. On Alito and Roberts, though, we can get the statistics from them when they were on district courts. They have clerks there too.

Scalia's excusemakers have said that he doesn't have many female clerks because women don't apply to be his clerks. But i think there are plenty of budding Ann Coulters would want to be his clerks. I know a few personally.

No hard feelings

It's not that woamn can't graduate from the friendly confines of law school, it's just that out in the "real world" they aren't tough enough to handle the job, generally.

-- t-bone

Get back into your cave.

Here, go read about her:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89dith_Cresson