Interesting notes from "The Backlash"

[Brent]

An interesting comment from "The Backlash" (http://backlash.com/content/gender/)

Murder, rape and a hero - In New York three stories provide contrasting views of masculinity. In the first, Warren Farrier murdered his wife, pumping five bullets into her brain.

"A Brooklyn woman's husband yesterday slashed her tires, forcing her to go to a bus stop - where he pumped at least five bullets into her head as she pleaded for her life, police said." - Heather Gilmore, Larry Celona and Theresa Kiley, Hubby's Slay Trap (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/12477.htm), New York Post, December 3, 2003

About a year ago, after 13 years of marriage during which she filed complaints against him for domestic violence and infidelity, Mrs. Farrier separated from her husband and got a restraining order against him.

          In the second case, Luis Carmona retracted his guilty plea in last year's Flushing Meadow Park gang rape case.

"One of five Mexican immigrants charged with brutally raping a woman in Flushing Meadow Park last year agreed to plead guilty yesterday - then scrapped the deal at the last minute, saying "I didn't rape anyone."" - Eric Lenkowitz, Queens 'Rapist' Flip-Flops on Plea Deal (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/12466.htm), New York Post, December 3, 2003

          There is no deep meaning to be discovered by dissecting the lives of these people, no hidden truths, and somewhere feminists are taking note, shaking their heads while muttering about the foul nature of men as they add these cases to the long list of crimes committed by men against womanity.

          The only insight to be gleaned is from how they will react, in contrast, to the following story of a father's heroism:

"A toddler died when flames engulfed her Queens home early yesterday, and her father was clinging to life after trying to save her. Sam Solise, 69 - who had already rescued his 6-year- old daughter and the girls' mother - was in "extremely critical" condition at the Staten Island University Hospital burn center." - Ikimulisa Livingston, Alisha Berger and Philip Messing, Dad's Vain Bid to Save Tot in Fire (http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/12431.htm), New York Post, December 3, 2003

If feminists take note of Solise's efforts at all, it will be to brush it aside, cast it as a patriarchal oppressor protecting his property, or to look for sordid details with which to diminish his character. That's because the essential nature of feminism has long turned to bigotry, and herein lies the illiberal truth we must tell.

          Where conservatism accepts and builds on the nature of things as they are, liberalism posits a perfectibility to which all may aspire. The liberal goal of feminism was to overcome the limits imposed by anatomy to achieve perfect equality. During the past few decades, however, an illiberal lot cast the feminist idealists from their ivory towers, then converted the once-interesting structure of ideas into drab and unimaginative tenements housing squalid anti-intellects mounting monuments to masturbatory fantasies in which women, unencumbered by all things masculine, are magical, and men, the invisible magic by which work gets done.

          But if there is magic in the world, it's not to be found in separating the sexes or mounting one over the other, but in the ways which our differences fit. For that is the nature of which our magic is made.

[StPaulieGirl]

[p]Lumping criminals with heroes.  I hope God is watching over Sam and his family.


[p][/i]Where conservatism accepts and builds on the nature of things as they are, liberalism posits a perfectibility to which all may aspire. The liberal goal of feminism was to overcome the limits imposed by anatomy to achieve perfect equality. During the past few decades, however, an illiberal lot cast the feminist idealists from their ivory towers, then converted the once-interesting structure of ideas into drab and unimaginative tenements housing squalid anti-intellects mounting monuments to masturbatory fantasies in which women, unencumbered by all things masculine, are magical, and men, the invisible magic by which work gets done. [/i]

[p]  Couldn't agree more.