First, C.L. e-mails to commend The Other Charlotte for noting Peggy Noonan’s take on the “Bush Lied” obsessives who can’t believe that Iraq actually held a free election on Wednesday (see “A Watershed Moment,” Dec. 14):
“Peggy Noonan’s note about the illogic of claiming that Bush lied has been known around these parts for, I’d say, around 18 months. Indeed it is one of the primary reasons most of us engineers know that that this MSM, Democratic party and associated lefties meme is as Mr Spock might say, ‘Quite illogical.’
“But in this debate we make the mistake of confusing a religion (based upon faith) with facts and logic. For those convinced of the ‘Bush lied meme are truely zealots of biblical proportions.”
Yes, “Bush Lied”-mania is faith-based, so all the evidence of Saddam’s past possession of WMD–or the genuine milestone of the Dec. 14 elections–isn’t going to make a difference.
Now comes Kat, who takes objection to this student essay (in the IWF Campus Corner by Miranda Collins:
“When it comes to the matter of equal pay — sure, I think I should get paid at the same rate if I am doing the same job as a man. The exact same job. If a man and I were hired on the same day, have been working at the company for the same number of years, came in at the same time, left at the same time, and took the same exact number of sick days. But to be realistic, that’s probably not going to happen for me or for most women because we like flexible schedules that allow us to spend time with our kids and our husbands. We generally like to be in a safe, clean office rather than a dangerous and dirty construction site and we would trade higher pay for better conditions. We can’t have both. You know you can’t have your cake and eat it too!”
Writes Kat:
“Miranda Collins should be eternally thankful for feminism. Without it, she would not be able to set foot inside a classroom, let alone have a public voice to be able to vote or even write a commentary for the world to see. Because information is no longer filtered through the male experience, she is able to do this. She should acknowledge that feminism has given her the freedom and the rights she now enjoys today and that women fought and died so she can have the rights and protections she now has. She drank from the well of feminism when it suited her and reaped the benefits of the work of feminists, but she denies that feminism is any good for women.
“She is clearly deluded and is just another male-identified woman in a patriarchy. It’s fortunate that all women don’t think like her.”
Hate to break in with some reality, Kat, but not all feminists believe in a male patriarchy that continues to oppress us even after we’ve won all our rights. The early feminists merely wanted equality–the right to vote, to be as well educated as men, and the right to be hired, paid, and promoted on the same basis as men. They didn’t whine after special benefits and privileges, and they didn’t expect to have the government take care of them. We don’t consider ourselves “male-identified” just because we reject the quotas and the gender-coddling sought by our radical sisters.