End Women’s Suffrage Now!I’m probably going to go down into the man-hating hall of fame with this next piece, but here goes: women should not have the right to vote. From the minimal American history I was taught in public school, I remember that women’s suffrage began in 1920. Then the Depression in 1929. Then the New Deal in the thirties. Then a huge war that killed millions. Then a nuclear-tinged cold war. And so on. Of course I don’t believe that women’s voting caused all these horrible things, as the saying translated from Latin says, "Coincidence does not imply causation." But I’m just carrying the same string of thought as the lefty press when they evoke the coincidence that the economy has grown enormously under the Clinton regime, and they use it to imply causation. Anyone who is familiar with basic economics could deduce that our economic and technological progress has been made in spite of crippling Clintonian taxes and regulations, and arguably would have been tenfold if the latter had not existed. Now that Clinton is in the picture, that reminds me of something I heard years ago, in my father’s auto repair shop. A woman customer was talking to another about how she thought the Governor from Arkansas was "cute." The other woman agreed, and said that she would vote for him because she liked his smile. This thoroughly pissed my dad off, and this was not appropriate talk for his office, where an 8-by-10 portrait of Ronald Reagan blessed the room. My father went on a tirade about how women shouldn’t be able to vote. I was just a kid, so I didn’t think anything of it, and I had been trained by my left-liberal mother to regard with suspicion any political (or any, actually) comment my father made, since he was and is a die-hard Republican. I was reared by my mom (my parents have been divorced since I was five) to believe that bureaucrats must be trusted to run every aspect of our lives. I believed it, too, for a long time. I was becoming the perfect Democrat. Then I began skipping school, and my thinking changed almost instantly, the second I came in contact with the realities of life. I now concur with my father with regard to most things political, except for the fact that he loves American Imperialism and is a lot softer on welfare issues than I am. Now both my parents actually agree on something: that I’m an anarchist freak. But they’re wrong. I’m not a freak. However, I did hear something that freaked me out. It made me laugh uncontrollably, too, but that was an unexpected side effect. My friend was watching the Man Show on Comedy Central. By the telling title, it wins the "Most Misogynistic Show On Television" award. I can’t stand the hosts, but they were redeemed forever for their antics that day. According to my buddy, they set up a booth on a city street, with the banner "END WOMEN’S SUFFRAGE NOW!" and were trying to get people to sign their (lamentably) phony petition. Hordes of women signed the petition! They lined up, voicing their agreement with the "activists." Finally, a woman came to the booth and started yelling to the other bright women that "suffrage was voting." It is absolutely incredible that this huge group of morons actually vote for people who will enact laws to run my life! I personally think that if all men were permitted to vote, and all women were excluded, we wouldn’t be in any better shape. There are a lot of idiots in this country, and defending their right to vote for legislation that affects and even damages American quality of life is not the best thing we can do for ourselves. I am just very much opposed to the feminist demand that women’s suffrage is a fundamental right that must be accepted as given. That everyone must be allowed to vote simply because they exist is ridiculous. Voting for representation in, say, a condominium association is vastly different from voting for representation in the legalized looting-spree that is popularly called politics. A person does not become knowledgeable and mature politically simply by virtue of turning eighteen. In fact, I believe that the left-leaning Establishment (which as far as I’m concerned includes most Republicans) wants young, inexperienced, and especially impressionable kids to vote for people who represent things that they don’t fully understand, if at all. If the masses of politically and economically braindead high school and college students can be philosophically shoved this way and that by whoever is presently controlling the public schools, then they will want as many "sheeple" to vote as possible, thus the impetus for their lowering of the voting age from 21 to 18. All the controversy about voting aside, I think the very concept of a mere majority, learned or not, controlling the lives of all inhabitants within a geographical boundary is sickening. Etienne de la Boetie would rather have been ruled by one tyrant than one million tyrants; I share his views, 450 years later. One king can be toppled easily, and with much public support, but the modern orgy of democracy is lulling the people of this planet into a new era of serfdom. As much as it is politically incorrect to say so, women do have an irreplaceable role in the family. Women’s "Liberation" has really liberated morals and values from family life and society. The very "progressive" programs that most women vote for are the ones forcing them to work all hours to pay the huge tax burden required to sustain these programs. So when I am asked whether I think women should vote, I must say no. But the logical extension of my thinking is that no one should have the right to vote away the rights of others. Property is not safe when any common deadbeat can vote it out from under the owner. If we must have a country run by suffrage, it should be limited to property owners. At least they wouldn’t undermine the principles that made this country great to begin with. Just a quick post script to save face. I love my parents despite the fact that they’re both statist freaks. August 14, 2000 Jeremy [send him mail] is a real estate agent in Miami Beach. He edits anti-state.com, an anarcho-capitalist magazine and provides free email addresses for anarchists at anarchomail.com. |