Tuesday night Carrie Solages was all smiles at the Nassau County Democratic Headquarters Victory Party. As he thanked his supporters and family, he was exuberant and gracious. And he had every right to be. He had done something that Nassau Democrats had been trying to do for years with little luck – he unseated 16 year incumbent Republican Legislator John Ciotti, and as a person familiar with the history of the district, believe me when I say it was a truly Sisyphean victory.

The district is majority Democratic, but John Ciotti is popular in the community and for various reasons Democratic voters do not turn in as high numbers as Republicans do in the odd year elections when the county legislators are elected. However, there is more at play than a simple lack of enthusiasm. The Nassau County Republicans are notorious for their intimidation of Democratic voters, especially people of color, as I have written about previously. The difference is that this year, Solages campaign was able to capture this intimidation and racism on film.

Solages win is symbolic of so many things – a grassroots victory over an entrenched political machine, the power of the internet and ubiquity of digital cameras to influence a large number of people quickly, a community standing up and fighting back against racism, and also proof that sometimes – the good guy does win. Sometimes, justice is served, and the person standing up to the bully doesn’t get trampled, but is the triumphant hero. And this year, it wasn’t merely a dream, or an inspirational story liberals tell themselves to keep their spirits high, it came true right here on Long Island.

The final lesson to learn in this happy chapter of the 2011 elections, is that the Nassau County Republicans are not unaware of how and why they lost this seat. Tuesday night, two candidates who won reelection spoke of their unwavering support for John Ciotti.

Other Republicans stood up for Ciotti even as the numbers looked grim “Ciotti ran a great race,” said fellow North Valley Streamer and Town of Hempstead Councilman Ed Ambrosino. “I don’t care what it says up here, John Ciotti is a winner each and every day.”

“John Ciotti is a man of tremendous integrity, of tremendous character,” said Nassau County Legislator Fran Becker.

What fascinates me about these quotes is that they were uttered at the exact moment they will have maximum impact in both raining on Carrie Solages victory and minimizing the damage to their own reputations. In two years, no one will remember John Ciotti’s racist tactics and so statements supporting him will be meaningless as ammunition for challengers. There will be no consequences for absurdity of these statements. That they were made at a time when they cannot be held accountable for them shows a shrewd calculation, that they are aware of the power of their words. Ambrosino and Becker did not say these things two weeks ago when Ciotti’s campaign was going down in flames, because outright support for racist and intimidating tactics would have hurt their own electoral chances. By waiting until after the polls have closed on election night proves they know it, and this is important to remember. Future dirty tricks may be more subtle or not as cinematic, but still just as underhanded as what happened in front of Solages’ campaign office this October.

Two years ago, I posted a diary over at Feministing about why I disagree with people who claim that those of us who have respect for others regardless of race, gender or sexuality can be Republicans. The idea of the Republican “big tent” is easily disproved.

The video below and the campaign that followed were a lesson to me in Republican dirty tricks. It wasn’t that I hadn’t seen mud slinging before on Long Island. I had heard Republicans use racist code words about to discredit Democrats, especially candidates who were people of color – if a person was Black, they would talk about how “the neighborhood is changing” and if the candidate was Latin@, “immigration” would suddenly become the top priority for local government. But the summer of 2009 and the time I spent on Nina Petraro Bastardi’s campaign was when I realized how much their prejudice meant to Republicans and how far they were willing to take it. I watched as the Nassau County Republican Party lost all claim to plausible deniability with regards to their bigotry. They really are burning with hatred. Listen to this man’s voice.

It doesn’t stop with screaming. One of the reasons that Ms Petraro Bastardi became a Democrat was because of explicitly racist voter suppression tactics used by the Republican party:

Nassau County Republican Board of Elections Commissioner John A. DeGrace [attempted] to reproduce and mail the bogus ACORN letter to newly registered African-American voters in the Hempstead-Uniondale district. The letter allegedly told the would-be voters not to go to the polls on Election Day, that their votes would be cast for their respective parties’ candidates.

Some blamed the outburst on anger that Ms Petraro Bastardi had left the Republican party. But this is just not true. Claims of intimidation have surfaced again, this time made by Carrie Solages, a local attorney who is running for the Nassau County Leigslature in the 3rd district against incumbent John Ciotti, the same contest Ms Petraro Bastardi attempted to win previously.

Does the man calling for “animal control” to come and take away the Black people look familiar?

John Ciotti denies that he knows Vinnie Prisco. But that’s patently false. In this followup video, it’s reported that Mr. Prisco’s mother said that he’s John Ciotti’s right hand man. In addition to the coverage by WPIX, ABC also gets the story right, putting it into context with past racism and voter suppression. NBC interviewed John Ciotti, and he insisted it was “an isolated incident” but the video from Nina Petraro Bastardi’s campaign announcement above, her statement, and statements from Patrick Nicolosi and others who have campaigned in Nassau prove otherwise.

Kudos to those who got the story right. It would be easy to let this devolve into a “he said/she said” story, but the evidence is clear – the actions of the Nassau County Republicans have been despicable and show a clear pattern of racism and voter intimidation. It’s time we started calling them out for it.

And if John Ciotti cares so much about justice, if he really was sickened by these events, then he should stop worrying about Vinny Prisco and start worrying about all of his other thugs. If Mr. Ciotti has seen the light, and really wants a fair election, then he should support Carrie Solages call for for Federal Election monitors on November 8th.

I have been following the Occupy Wall Street protests with great interests. Like many on the left, at first I wasn’t sure what I thought – but every day that they stayed, I was more captivated. I haven’t been there in person yet. Most of my free time in these past few months has been spent volunteering for a campaign for a local election on Long Island. I would like to visit after election day. But like many Americans, I worry about the threat to my day job if I were to be arrested.

Last night, I went to sleep after reading the news that Mayor Bloomberg had decided that this morning at 6AM he would force the protesters from the park, for cleaning. This was exactly how Los Indignatos were forced from their protest in Barcelona, while Adam and I were visiting in May. When the protesters tried to return, they were beaten with clubs by the police. I worried about something similar happening in New York.

This morning, however, brought good news. Mayor Bloomberg has backed down. I opened my email and revised the message I had started to write to my City Councilman, Mark Weprin last night, and sent it.

This morning I was very relieved to hear that Mayor Bloomberg decided not to remove the protesters from Zuccotti Park. I am writing this email to urge you to do everything you can to support New Yorkers’ First Amendment Rights. Our city is made great by the diversity of people who live here, and that includes differences in politics. I am proud to live in a place where the Occupy Wall Street Protests are taking place, and where the right to peaceful protest is respected by the government.

I sent a similar email to Mayor Bloomberg, and included a reference to his inspiring speech defending Park 51 last year where he claimed to champion diversity and freedom. Here’s hoping he will continue to be that Mayor and not the misguided one he was last night.

Although I missed it in theaters, I was able to watch Orgasm, Inc. on DVD this weekend. It’s a documentary about the quest to find a drug that can increase sexual function in women, a “female Viagra.” What I learned was compelling.

As you might have guessed, the quest for a “female Viagra” began immediately after the original hit the shelves, drug companies were heady with success and had dollar signs in their eyes. The filmmaker, Liz Canner, follows one company racing to be the first to stake a claim and win FDA approval and also the New View Campaign, a group of activists led by several feminist academics who claim that drugs are not the answer to Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD).

For a drug to be approved by the FDA, it must treat a specific medical condition. New View claims that FSD was made up by the drug companies who are looking to sell more drugs to women. I have always been skeptical of the claim that 40% of women are sexually dysfunctional. It sounds like whatever traits these women have in common would be within the range of normal human sexuality, which varies wildly. However, I was curious, perhaps it was like nearsightedness or flat feet – an incredibly common ailment but one that was also harmful and could be easily treated.

The opposite point of view argues that if women are having trouble with sex, the culprit may be that women’s expectations of sex are much too high or that they are simply uneducated. One of the women in the movie who claimed to have FSD was capable of orgasm, but could not do so during intercourse! I was aghast. Most women cannot orgasm during intercourse. Research indicates that the ability to orgasm during intercourse might be related to a physical characteristic – the distance between the clitoris and the vaginal opening – not a medical problem.

Dr. Leonore Tiefer from New View repeatedly states that an orgasm does not come from a bottle. She talks about how sexual desire is something created by the people having sex. It seemed like a call to women who prefer to view sex as something that “just happens.” In a culture that views women as sexually passive and objects to be acted upon, this is a challenge. It is a radical shift to see oneself not only as a person who is sexually desired by others but as a person who has sexual desires and can act to pursue them.

Orgasm Inc. explores other topics related products and services related to women’ sexuality, pornography and sex toys, labiaplasty and even media personalities who have made a name for themselves advising women about sex. A storyline about a sex educator who crashes an FSD conference, and a suspenseful FDA hearing create the climax (!!) of the film. This documentary  updated my sex education – there were several stories I had heard about briefly in the news, like the orgasmatron – a spinal implant that can dispense bliss with the push of a button that I had never followed up with.

In our increasingly sex negative culture, it was refreshing to spend some time thinking about efforts being made to improve the sexual happiness of women – even if many of the people doing it have agendas that are entirely profit motivated. In exposing the marketing blitz of Female Sexual Dysfunction, Orgasm Inc. encourages us to think critically about our sexuality – something that can be a little bit scary, but can lead to great beauty and joy.

I’ve been reading a lot of r/mensrights lately, in part because they have occasionally linked to posts I’ve written, and also because I’m a glutton for punishment. I think that David Futurelle at Man Boobz does an excellent job of distilling what is going on with regards to MRA’s on the internet and taking the piss out of it. But there are a few premises I see repeated over and over that I would like to address.

One is what David calls, “We Hunted The Mammoth To Feed You” and it goes something like this – feminists have no right to complain about anything men do, ever because back in the caveman days, men did EVERYTHING and women sat on rocks eating bonbons. The problem is that this varied wildly from culture to culture. From wikipedia:

The notion that preagricultural hunter-gatherers would have typically consumed a diet relatively low in carbohydrate and high in protein has been questioned. Critics argue that there is insufficient data to identify the relative proportions of plant and animal foods consumed on average by Paleolithic humans in general,and they stress the rich variety of ancient and modern hunter-gatherer diets. Furthermore, preagricultural hunter-gatherers may have generally consumed large quantities of carbohydrates in the form of carbohydrate-rich tubers (plant underground storage organs).According to Staffan Lindeberg, an advocate of the Paleolithic diet, a plant-based diet rich in carbohydrates is consistent with the human evolutionary past.

However, great disparities do exist, even between different modern hunter-gatherer societies. The animal-derived calorie percentage ranges from 25% in the Gwi people of southern Africa, to 99% in Alaskan Nunamiut. The animal-derived percentage value is skewed upwards by polar hunter-gatherer societies, who have no choice but to eat animal food because of the inaccessibility of plant foods. Since those environments were only populated relatively recently (for example, paleo-Indian ancestors of Nunamiut are thought to have arrived to Alaska no earlier than 30,000 years ago), such diets represent recent adaptations rather than conditions that shaped human evolution during much of the Paleolithic. More generally, hunting and fishing tend to provide a higher percentage of energy in forager societies living at higher latitudes. Excluding cold-climate and equestrian foragers results in a diet structure of 52% plant calories, 26% hunting calories, and 22% fishing calories. Furthermore, those numbers may still not be representative of a typical Stone Age diet, since fishing did not become common in many parts of the world until the Upper Paleolithic period 35-40 thousand years ago, and early humans’ hunting abilities were relatively limited, compared to modern hunter-gatherers, as well (the oldest incontrovertible evidence for the existence of bows only dates to about 8000 BCE,and nets and traps were invented 22,000 to 29,000 years ago.)

An extreme version of this line of thought posits that, up until the Upper Paleolithic, humans were frugivores (fruit eaters), who supplemented their meals with carrion, eggs, and small prey such as baby birds and mussels, and, only on rare occasions, managed to kill and consume big game such as antelopes.

So when Paul Elam tries to make the case that women do not contribute anything of value to society because men kill whales, we can see how deluded he is. But if we are going to play “The Flintstones,” yes, men were out killing whales (or baby birds) but then women were the ones supplying the fruits, nuts and shoots which eventually led to agriculture.

It doesn’t end there of course, the argument continues that superior in their hunting skills, men invented EVERYTHING ELSE EVER. And while I cannot prove that women invented agriculture (It does logically follow that whoever was doing the gathering would gain an understanding of botany because they would need it to survive, just like the hunters would create more advanced spears, bows, etc.) we can prove that women have made significant contributions to our culture since history began to be recorded. And it’s not just Marie Curie.

There are scores of women scientists, artists and activists who shaped our world in countless ways, just like men do. Only the difference is that before the 1970’s they faced greater social and legal obstacles to do so – and so their contributions are even more extraordinary. Just to name one example, Rosalind Franklin lost out on her share of a Nobel Prize because of her gender.

I see a lot of posts complaining about women behaving crudely, or criminally, or cruelly. That’s because the fact that women are human, and can act just as despicably as men can, is in some way remarkable to MRAs.

The icing on the “We hunted the mammoth to feed you and then invented everything else” cake/screed, is something even uglier than the raw ignorance or their other arguments. A common MRA argument goes like this, since men are physically stronger than women, everything women have men could take away at any moment. To which I say, “No shit, Sherlock.” Does anyone ever think that women are every unaware at their relative physical weakness in relation to men, even for a second? Gavin DeBecker famously wrote,

At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.

That MRA’s drive this point home with repeated threats, the glamorization of MRA terrorists, and graphic fantasies of an apocalyptic future where women are all the slaves of men – reveals their argument – at its most basic level to be an appeal to force.

A large number of MRA arguments are based on making an appeal to force. And because of the quotation above, it is the best argument that they have. This is key to understanding their rhetoric, and to seeing past the anger and misogyny and nonsense. They are saying that because of their testosterone and muscle, they are right, and that they can enforce this rightness upon women at any given moment.

As I previously posted, I am a fan of the podcast, “Both Sides Now.” I think it’s refreshing to hear a debate between right and left that isn’t about name calling. However, I was shocked to hear such ridiculous rhetoric coming from all three participants about the HPV vaccine while listening to the September 17 episode. I’m really starting to understand Amanda’s obsession.

Mary Matalin and Arianna Huffington insisted that it’s wrong for the government to mandate vaccinations – especially this one because it’s “a personal decision.” Matalin made a point that her daughter is still a virgin and Huffington said “it doesn’t make any sense at all…They’re 12 year olds!” Both seem to miss the point that the vaccine is supposed to be administered before the onset of sexual activity, and so it would be most appropriate for a 12 or 16 year old who has not had sexual activity with a partner yet.

Mark Green, the moderator, chimed in that it’s not a personal decision because the disease is “easily spread.” Matalin retorted “Then vaccinate men!” No one brought up that the vaccine has been approved for men for the past two years! Huffington said that if you don’t have it, you can’t spread it, which is hopelessly naive considering the amount of people who have HPV – the chances of getting it from one sexual encounter (including vaginal intercourse with a condom, oral sex, manual sex or even kissing) are very high. It sounds like she’s promoting abstinence – which unlike the Gardasil – stops working the minute you have sex.

Green inexplicably states that a girl “without a mother as good as Mary or Arianna” could have sex and get HPV – and he sounds astonishingly ignorant, for someone who expresses concern about issues pertaining to women and girls all the time. Just because a person has sex doesn’t mean that they had bad parents. Each one of the people on the panel has has had sex, (evidenced by the existence of their children) and Mark Green’s daughter has had sex (as evidenced by his proud proclamation that he is a grandfather)- was something wrong with the mothers of these pundits or with Mark Green’s parenting skills? Parents who raise healthy children will not, in all likelihood stop them from having sex. Parents who get the HPV vaccine for their children can make sure that when they do have sex, their children will not get vaginal, labial, cervical, penile, anal or throat cancer.

Mark Green then suggests that people opposed to the HPV vaccine are anti science, but then immediately drops the point when Matalin scoffs at him that “it’s not measles, it’s not Contagion and it’s not the Ebola virus, you have to engage in sex irresponsibly – one would hope that you would find out from their partner if they have an STD [before you have sex with them].” Matalin ignores the possibility of one acquiring the virus during from shaking or holding hands, while kissing, during a sexual assault, or from a cheating partner one wrongly believed to be monogamous.

Green states “but science says that it works” before backing off completely. He doesn’t elaborate on the concept of heard immunity which, campaign donations aside, is the practical reason why governments mandate vaccines. I would be interested in a conversation about why Matalin and Huffington think an individual’s right to refuse a vaccine overrides the plain fact that if we are all vaccinated, we protect the health of everyone. How is a mandate for a vaccine different from a mandate for seat-belts (passengers ejected from a car during a crash can hit other cars and cause another accident) smoking bans in restaurants (which Green did bring up but no one addressed) or laws against drunk driving?

Matalin did say that the vaccine was too new and untested to mandate. However it has been on the market since June 2006, for over five years. At what point would it become acceptably safe for her?

They all do agree that it is a good thing that the vaccine exists though, which, regrettably, is something to be thankful for in the current climate. I was very disappointed with this segment, and while it wasn’t the first time I have disagreed with the hosts, it was the first time I felt like the discussion was just as silly and uninformed as most of the noise on cable news.

Adam and I finally got around to watching the latest from Morgan Spurlock, “Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” a deliciously clever documentary about product placement – paid for by product placement.

The Greatest Movie draws attention to the ubiquity of advertising in entertainment, and while it is short on what consumers can do about this annoyance, it gives exclusive insight into the marketing strategies that place these advertisements. We see Spurlock speak with many companies about potentially buying into the film, and the reasons they accept or reject are telling. Some of the companies are skittish because of Spurlock’s controversial reputation and others simply don’t get what he is trying to accomplish. I found myself rolling my eyes at the folks who just didn’t get it because if I were in their shoes – I would jump at the chance to appear so smart and hip! I’ve never tried many of the products featured in the movie, but I do have a higher opinion of them now. I have no problem with earnestness in general, but it should be balanced with the occasional snark and levity.

Also of interest in the film, interviews with musicians about their decisions whether or not they license their music for commercials. The line between art and advertisement is blurring. I’ve been watching Nip/Tuck on Netflix and definitely was unable to suspend my disbelief when the characters had an argument about who took the last Yoplait.

A school district in Florida that allowed Spurlock to purchase advertisements for the movie inside their buses and sports field. Anyone who played little league knows what it’s like to be sponsored, but schools are taking it a step farther these days. My junior high and high schools had two billboards each outside the locker rooms advertising personal care products to boys and girls, and my university signed a contract with Coca-cola banning the sale of competing products on campus. I’m generally in favor of allowing schools to do what they need to provide the best education possible, but I would feel better about this if media literacy was a larger part of general education requirements. I did have some in my Home Economics class, but one week in the 8th grade is not nearly enough.

The Greatest Movie Ever Sold presents is an entertaining and savvy look into the world of advertising and the way corporations are beginning to commandeer every aspect of our media.

I think that Rick Santorum’s statements about the repeal of DADT during the Republican debate were not just a revealing look into how conservatives view sex, but also a good example of how conservatives are using dog whistles.

I was having a discussion about this with a friend, and he asked me why the crowd would dare show such disrespect to a soldier, and how Santorum didn’t even thank him for his service. It’s obvious that their intolerance and bigotry have lead them to otherize gay and lesbian people, and so they don’t see the need to consider their feelings. They do not care that a gay or lesbian soldier would need to lie under DADT, the idea that they should consider the unfair predicaments it created does not cross their minds. And yet they know, on some level that this is not acceptable to express – so they get angry when a gay person dare put them on the spot and feel compelled to tap dance around the topic whenever it comes up.

As to why they don’t just come out and say what they are thinking and take the criticism as anyone else with a controversial opinion does, I think they prefer dog whistles for three reasons. It enables them to simultaneously proclaim that “gays are icky” pretend that they aren’t saying it and feel clever for not saying anything that can be directly attached, and finally feel brave and courageous for being so “un-PC.” Until we realize how much smug satisfaction the latter of these two points give conservative, we won’t be able to effectively argue against them.

Whether it is a better tactic to insist on clearer answers to questions or to simply point out their contradictions is open to debate. But we should keep in mind that conservatives are often speaking on multiple levels and we shouldn’t always take what they say literally without careful consideration.

Tuesday night I attended Intelligence Squared’s debate “Men Are Finished” based on Hannah Rosin’s article of “The End of Men.” I remember my reaction to the initial article was along the lines of “What about Globalization? Isn’t this just the end of manufacturing? How much of the ‘man-cession’ is due to the wage gap?” These issues were touched on in the debate, but not in the depth I was hoping for.

This was my third Intelligence Squared debate, having attended “California is the First Failed State” and “The Two Party System is Making America Ungovernable” the first of which was even a bit wonky for my tastes and the second was extremely entertaining and intellectually stimulating.

I was prepared for a bit of silliness because debates about feminism can bring out total lunacy in some, but the mood was generally jovial and the debate was engaging and the best I’ve been to yet.

Initially, I was unsure as to why Rosin and Abrahms, the more feminist of the teams were arguing that Men Are Finished and that Hoff Summers and Zinczenko were saying they are not. I expected that the feminist position would be “Patriarchy has taken a blow, but men are just fine” and the converse to be that “Librul feminists have destroyed men.” I tweeted that this question is a little odd, because Feminism is not a zero sum game.

At the opening of the debate, the topic was clarified – Have we reached a tipping point where women can now expect to achieve the same accomplishments that traditionally have only been open to men? Have the changes of feminism been fundamental to society? If the answer is yes, then “Men are finished.” I think this is an oddly inflammatory way of stating a proposition.

Hoff Summers and Zinczenko argued that men and women are approaching equality because of feminism, and so men are not finished, they are simply equal. They did this with a heavy dose of “What about the menz?” David Zinczenko said that while there still is oppression in the world, “Male omnipotence ended in 1962.” Christina Hoff Summers argued that “If men are finished, we all are finished.”

Rosin and Abrahams built their case on all of the accomplishments women have made in the past half century and that traditionally female qualities are now just as valued or even in higher demand than traditionally male ones. Dan Abrahams cited many statistics about an alleged superiority of women – in legislating, in managing hedge fund portfolios even in diffusing potentially violent situations. I do not know if women who are in Congress and Wall Street are genuinely more talented than their male counterparts – I would argue that because of institutional sexism, only the best get to the top and that they must work much harder and achieve more to be taken as seriously.

The pro side was asked directly if feminism was a zero sum game, and they said no, of course not, but felt that the future looks brighter for women than men.

I did not get called on to ask a question, but there were two I was thinking of asking. First and most obviously I would have asked if the panelists thought that masculinity is finished – because I think a better case can be made for that. The other question I kept returning to was “Is Feminism over? Is there anything left for it to accomplish?” I had a feeling that the panelists might have said that it was over but for different reasons – Rosin and Abrahams because women are ascendant and Hoff Summers and Zinczenko because women are equal. However, they all did acknowledge remaining barriers to women’s success especially outside of the United States, so they might not have agreed so neatly.

I wasn’t exactly comfortable voting at the end of the debate that “Men Are Finished” but Rosin and Abrahams were miles ahead of their opponents in framing the debate. The argued that the decline of traditional gender roles has created a space where women can thrive and they are doing so when men – because of the decline of manufacturing and an increasing sigma against sexism are floundering. In world where brawn does not count for as much as it used to and where men are no longer automatically given deference, women have a chance to compete on more equal footing.

Hoff Summers and Zinczenko were not as grating as I expected them to be, but they came close. Their argument was convoluted – they were arguing that the proposition was preposterous, that men are disadvantaged by women’s recent gains, that society is too feminized now and it hurts boys, that men and women are equal AND that feminism has a long way to go. The frequent contradictions were did nothing to bolster their “separate-but-equal” “complementarianism” brand of feminism.

Patriarchy is not over, and even if it was, men, thankfully would not be. This debate, while it had its silly moments, was illuminating and made me feel hopeful about the future of feminism. The less feminist side of the panel frequently and strongly praised the gains women have made in years past and looked forward to a time without sexism. That we can all agree on these points is a great place to start.

Future Intelligence Squared Debate Topics Include “The World Would Be Better Off Without Religion” and “Too Many Kids Go To College.”

Amanda wrote about her incredulity that we are still having an argument about whether or not government should exist. As my recent long discussion with some internet libertarians* about the legitimacy of government is winding down, I know very well how much this debate can feel like smashing your forehead into a brick wall.

What I got out of the discussion is that even though libertarians admit that the government does lots of good things that improve people’s lives, they insist they have deeply principled moral objections to the idea of a government that has the power to put people in jail.

It’s similar to what can be observed of pro-lifers – they present themselves as just loving babies but what they really want is to control everyone else’s sex life. Libertarians claim they just love freedom but in the end they are just sullenly complaining that a any authority exists above themselves, no matter how pragmatic or democratic it is.

This prioritizing of one’s own smug self assurance of the moral high ground at the expense of every other person in the country is in no way superior to those who accept the legitimacy of the state to exist. It ignores and demeans all of the work put into our country (and others) by elected representatives and civil servants throughout history. It disgraces the memories of the people who died for the right to self-government. It leads to the questioning of a person’s touch with reality.

A person who denies the need for a government, denies the existence of the commons problem, which has been a subject for philosophers since the days of Aristotle. The solutions that they do offer have no rigor that would stand up to a competent policy analysis and no explanation of how they would be achieved aside from fiat.

Because I support the idea of a democratic republic like the United States, I was called “an authoritarian.” I reject this label outright. I am a liberal. There is a large middle ground between Authoritarian tyranny and Seasteading Solipsism. The argument that there is not goes like this: in a Democracy, some people will not vote for various reasons, and others who vote will not have their candidate or proposition win a majority. Therefore, those people will not get there way. Thus, they are oppressed. That every single person cannot get their way at all times, is not oppression. I do not see a difference between the communal solutions they propose and efforts already being made at a local level by small communities. Even if environmentalists (or any other group) is not getting results at the federal level, policy changes are often quicker at state and local levels. The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and the granting of same sex marriage rights in several states come to mind.

It was proposed that because a majority of Americans say the government operates “without the consent of the governed” that our government is illegitimate. Another commenter pointed out that the question forced people to speculate about what others think of the government, not whether the person being asked has given their consent. I would add that for the average person not interested in political philosophy the difference between whether or not you agree to the actions of the current slate of elected leaders versus whether you felt that the mere existence of the government in general was contrary to your will is probably lost.

Finally, I want to address the comparison of government to rape. Over and over in the thread, it was brought up that a person saying nothing, laying silently cannot be considered to have consented to sex. I gave this a lot of thought because on it’s face it appears to be a valid argument. But the government is not like a rapist. No one is born being raped, they way they are born a citizen of the United States. Rape is a specific action which one individual takes upon another without the victims consent, or despite her protests. The United States Government is an institution created by its citizens which, while oppressive at times, changes in response to their participation. A rapist can be identified and held responsible for his crime, similar to the way individual corrupt members of an administration may be. But the idea of the United States is not put on trial by it’s citizens in any significant way – even though they would have the power to do so by electing people into office who promised to disband it. That we continue to elect people to use the powers proscribed for them is testament to our consent.

*Some of the people defined themselves as Libertarians, others as Anarchists or Anarcho-Capitalists. As they were all arguing that the United States Government be abolished and not replaces with anything else, I am grouping them together.