The following is a dialogue which illustrates how the passions surrounding this issue can polarize people who might be expected to agree. This is from a moderated men's issues mailing list. There are 4 separate posts represented here, beginning with my worthy opposition's response to a very inflammatory post of mine exhorting men to get off their passive butts and, instead of continuing to complain about how the tide of social policy and practice is turning against them, demand more of a voice in the decisions of our government representatives than they now have. Below this first message are my response, plus two more exchanges, indicated both by typestyle and indentation. My critic's comments are all in italics.
From: < deleted for privacy >
"John Galt repeats himself any number of times:
"PUT IT ON THE BALLOT! "
I don't know where John comes from, but his request from a practical consideration does not make any sense for any number of reasons.
1. There is no legal way to put it on a ballot without any kind of legislation.
2. The vote would be equivalent to another presidental election. Here, the consitution is *very* clear that it be held every fourth year, etc.
3. Such a vote would profoundly change our system into a parlimentary system.
4. There already exists under the consitution a method to address the situation.
5. ...
What I would like to see is the discussion relating to the impact of what is going on to men's issues. After all, Clinton was/is the male feminist supreme. And now, literally, he has been caught with his pants down.
If perjury is acceptable under civil court action, it condones something that many male posters have complained about -- their to-be-ex lying in court. My opinion says that if Clinton gets away with it, there will be no recourse to men in trial courts.
Stated another way, what will, if any the consequences of Clinton's actions have on the feminist movement? I think what is going on is relevant to this ng."
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Yes, I do repeat myself. It is a time honored rhetorical method of providing emphasis to a statement. In this electronic Boston commons, it takes some creativity to keep the textual verbage from going flat. However, I'll switch styles from attempts to rouse passions with rhetoric to trying to persuade with common sense.
"Perhaps such a rhetorical method works with the unwashed from Harvard, MIT and the like, but I and I think alot of the readers, we don't need a lecture on a concept."
A thousand pardons, good sir, but since you had not yet seemed to have caught on to the concept, I hoped that alternate methods of expression might help get the message across.
I am frankly a bit surprised at real resistance to a suggestion that current methods and technology of communication be used to resolve this crisis in a manner similar to their role in creating it. I am even more surprised that in a forum which regularly discusses the intrusive incursion of the government into men's lives as a result of the actions of special interest groups that I would find resistance to a suggestion that could restore to men some of the power which has been stripped of them in order to provide entitlements to others.
I would have expected my proposal to be as attractive to opponents of the current president as to his supporters, because it could give them the means to remove him from office far sooner than will be possible in a lengthy impeachment process. My personal opinion is that congress may actually have more support for his removal on the grounds of fitness for duty than on the perjury accusation. Clearly he has destroyed his own credibility and the confidence of the public, and that is certainly central to a determination whether he is ABLE to discharge the duties of his office. The impeachment process is risky. The only other time it has been invoked, it failed and seriously disrupted the country. I don't think it is in the interests of anyone to spend the next year with congress and the president fighting each other and ignoring more pressing concerns, only to have it turn out that he serves out what little is left of his term anyway.
"The impeachment process is not risky. The process has been clearly defined by our constitution. We are not going to Mars, where the terrain may be poorly defined. The previous time that it was invoked was a stressful time -- specifically the Viet Nam war along with the civil unrest. We don't have it at the present time. Indeed, the country is fat and happy."
Indeed, at the moment we are fat and happy, and I would very much like us to stay that way. Much of my point is that the national filibuster which this has become is stalling the rest of the national agenda and another year or more of the Bill and Monica Show, or the Bill & Ken show, will drag down and demoralize everyone. Our economy is stable now, but it is the only healthy economy left in the world. It will take work to keep it that way - work which people will be far more able to do if they are not stressed out with anxiety over a void in leadership.
Actually the previous occurance of impeachment to which I was referring was not Richard Nixon, 25 years ago, but Andrew Johnson in 1868. Nixon resigned before the full house voted on impeachement. Johnson went all the way through trial in the Senate. Conviction failed by one vote.
"The only pressing concern is what Clinton has done. All of the so called other problems are things that can be put off to the future. The so-called crisis are just White House and Democrat Party propaganda. The Asia and other problems are problems that the US can only do small things about it. It isn't the case where we can send an army and in a short time, things are straighten out."
Sending in an Army never occurred to me. I am more concerned that the US economy not catch the stagnation virus which is afflicting the rest of the world.
I certainly consider these as relevant issues for men, particularly in light of the fact that the incursions on men's lives have occurred over several administrations of both parties and are not likely to go away when Clinton does. In light of the fact that the momentum of government is so contrary to the interests of a lot of men, perhaps it could use a bit of change. In particular, it could use a bit of opening up to guys who are struggling to make a living and provide for their families, or keep up CS payments, and have neither the time to become sqeaky wheels, nor the money to fund special interest lobbies. I tend to believe that a popular recall mechanism would serve men's interests quite well in cases such as VAWA and they could demand public confirmation that the public regarded it as being in their interest.
I'm not sure of what method you mean in item 4 above, but it seems to sound like "going through channels." While I have no objection to that under normal circumstances, what we are discussing is far from normal. Protocol is cumbersome enough that channels which were established in the pre-electronic age would delay any action until the election is passed, thus missing the window of opportunity. It is the very fact that the election is already scheduled, structured, and has verification mechanisms which make it such a perfect vehicle to replace the "public opinion" polls which have neither validity or significance.
"Item 4 is simply the impeachment process. A process, as I have stated prior, that is well defined."
"Implicit in Galt's last paragraph above is changing our Government!!!! What John is saying, everytime there is a political problem, go and call another election. This would change our government to a parlementary system!!!"
Actually that is not what I was saying at all. All kinds of special elections are called for everything from tax proposals to filling unexepected vacancies in public office. We have a defacto implementation of this already in the infamous and dreaded "public opinion" polls. Several times a day we can hear the results of the latest P O Poll, like bleeps from a heart monitor in an ICU. What I am saying is that instead of this daily pulse taking of people who represent the US population but not the US voters, ( since only about half of those eligible to do so actually vote, decisions made on P O poll results are being made on invalid results ) implement a polling technique which is guaranteed to represent voters because only voters are polled.
In it's simplest formulation, it doesn't amount to anything more than requiring that congress use a validated means of determining voter opinion rather than an unvalidated means. Certainly there is not legal foundation to make it binding, but this whole fiasco has been based on information more than it has on facts. We could call it the "Joe Friday Initiative" - "Just the facts, folks, just the facts."
I will cite the following historical precedent:
"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter it" (emphasis added)
The powers that strip men of their rights to see their children or be part of their lives, even as those powers turn those men into remote controlled walking wallets, are not just. They do not derive from the consent of the governed. It is the right of those men to seek to alter it. And it is not even the structure of government which this would alter as much as its unofficial methods.
I contend that the government is changing even as we speak, and it is the unintentional changes which have so disempowered men. It will be a long time before all the changes which have occurred while we have been watching are even catalogued, much less sorted out. To illustrate but one, and its implications, consider the way that this persistent annoying item on the evening news exploded into an international event with far more coverage than the death of Princess Diana.
Following Nick's description of the way culture has become feminized, that seems to apply to congress itself. Acting on "iron whim", congress on the basis of very limited debate, apparently considering few of the implications and consequences, decided to make the results of a, presumably federal, Grand Jury investigation into a matter of international public record. Grand Jury results are sealed and virtually never unsealed, at least until indictments are issued. Congress may have blundered through a loophole into completely undefined legal no-mans-land, or they may have violated federal law in view of the whole world. If so, how many of them may serve prison terms for it?
If I were an enterprising and ruthless young attorney, or news-hound, I would certainly try to exploit the following question:
Given the precedents set between 9/9/98 and 9/21/98 by the House of Representatives, on what legal basis will the recipient of the results of any Grand Jury investigation, performed under the same jurisdiction as that of the OIC, be able to deny a demand that it be released into the international public record and be posted on the internet, at the requester's expense?
Regarding the implications of this case for men in general, I think the most horrible possible outcome for men would be to allow Lewinsky's testimony and credibility not to be aggressively challenged. Putting the word of a woman barely out of her teens, described by many as immature, who grew up going to weekly sessions with her psychiatrist like many kids go to music lessons, and who now takes anti-depressive medication; on equal footing with a man who is a Rhodes Scholar, attorney, and who has shown the political savvy to be elected governor twice and president twice; cannot possibly serve men. Somewhere this great leveling must cease and statements by a woman not continue to have instant and unassailable credibility.
"I was watching Larry King this evening (9-23) and he had the Goldberg woman on -- Linda Trip's friend. To summarize, there is a issue already coming up that Linda is accusing Monica of lying under oath. So, Monica is not free yet. Indeed, it very well could be that Monica is in *real* hot water because she got the special dispensation before the Grand Jury and there are data that *may* show that Monica is still supporting Clinton."
I wonder what the limitations are on the immunity promised Lewinsky in return for her testimony. Obviously it would not extend to her Grand Jury testimony. If it ends up that she perjured herself before the Grand Jury, it might result in her entire testimony being thrown out. My guess is that's why it was released so quickly, to get it in the public mind before it got called into question.
The Jones case should have been dismissed long ago on lack of merit, as it finally was. A horrible implication for men of the way this case has played is that it establishes the precedent for keeping a Sexual Harassment case alive indefinitely as long as the prosecution can keep proving that the accused has had sex with SOME woman. It may be possible to get some of the "rape shield" laws struck down, but, unless and until they are, full disclosure of a man's sexual history as relevant while suppressing any of the woman's sexual history makes men sitting ducks and defenseless to charges. >
"The Jones case is not over with. JUdge Wright put in her decision that with Clinton perhaps lying under oath, Jones may get an auto decision in her favor."
That would certainly set another interesting precedent.
This case is a great victory for feminism, meaning the capricious ends justify the means kind of feminism. Of the two principles in the activity involved, the man is getting nailed, while the woman is able to remain free of any consequences of her own actions and choices.
JG
"This will not be a victory for feminism. What the end affect will be is that all of those male feminists supporting all kinds of unequal rights will be suspect. For example, Packwood and Brock Adams. That will be the valid cry -- why are you (a male legislator) supporting unequal rights? Are you trying to get into some female supporter's pants?"
"Another side affect will be to clear up this matter, as I had stated in my first reply, that lying under oath in a civil matter is not acceptable. Males will be able to use the club that lying in divorce and child support cases is reason to rule in favor of the male. It may be the long way around, but it will have the impact. It will be just a matter of time where lawyers supporting the male will use it as an example in their court proceedings."
"Also, the imbalance between the accused and the accuser will also close, should Monica be proven to be lying."
But if it turns out that Monica was lying, there goes the only testimony which will definitively support the perjury charge.
"I think that this case will be an important victory for male rights -- if for no other reason that we got rid of the number one male feminist in the country."
I've been shooting rats around grain bins for more than 40 years, and gotten some big ones too, and I haven't made significant dent in the population, nor do I seem to have decrease the size of the largest rats. Sex and politics have gone together since thousands of years before Cleopatra. I don't really expect this to make a serious dent in the number of young women desiring to blow their ways onto the fast track up. And I don't expect it to decrease the number of male politicians who pander to the female vote. All they have to do is to be hypocritical enough to not like women as much as Clinton did, or at least in the way he liked them, but claim that they do, and as long as they keep their zippers zipped, there is nothing to nail them on.
Phil made an interesting comment, way back in this thread, about the possibility that women were setting this up to make it look like men just weren't any of them "moral" enough to be president: thus setting the stage for a woman president in the near future. The night the Starr report was released, some male talking head who wrote a book about Lyndon Johnson made exactly the same comment.
I don't believe any of it, and I don't believe that burning yet another middle-aged, white, heterosexual, can't-get-no-more-mainstream male at the stake of sexual misconduct is going to advance the rights of men in general.