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From: judy@altair.la.locus.COM (Judy Leedom Tyrer)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Feminism's ill effects on men?
Message-ID: <18761@oolong.la.locus.com>
Date: 26 Oct 90 15:55:24 GMT
References: <655058917@lear.cs.duke.edu> <17931@oolong.la.locus.com> <656123957@lear.cs.duke.edu>
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In article <656123957@lear.cs.duke.edu> gazit@cs.duke.edu (Hillel Gazit) writes:
>In article <17931@oolong.la.locus.com> (Judy Leedom Tyrer) writes:
>>Some feminists (me) also believe in minimum federal government and actually
>>believe that such things as ERA and Abortion Rights legitimately belong
>>at the State level.
>
>And in how many states you lost the vote on state ERA, even though
>the popular support before the debate started was quite high?

My apologies.  The ERA calls for a constitutional ammendment and that
is legislation at the federal level, therefore I am not distressed
that the ERA did not pass.

[Constitutional amendment calls for ratification by 2/3's of the
states, which was why ERA got voted on in each state although it was
federal level legislation.  --CLT]

>And how many abortion right laws did you pass, at state level,
>in the last 15 years?

None were necessary in the past 15 years.  Now the right of abortion
will be discussed at the state level where, I believe, it belongs.

-----

Herein lies the problem.  I believe that it is important to have a
consistant political philosophy and not base your philosophy on "in
this case it should be this way and in that case that way".  So, while
I believe that discrimination based on gender is detrimental to our
country, I have a hard time believing that a constitutional ammendment
is the correct or best method of achieving this result.  Yes, I want
this kind of protection at the federal level, but I don't want the
kind of government which is created when everything is legislated at
the federal level.  The same applies to abortion.

So, I must ask myself, what is worse - a strong federal government
that legislates the lives of a divergent group of people, or the
possiblity that some smaller, more heterogeneous group of people might
legislate differently than I believe they should.  I think the former
is more dangerous and less desirable, so I must, to remain politically
consistant, accept that my special interests also do not belong in the
hands of our federal government.

I am not a libertarian.  I believe in government.  But the federal
government should only provide for a common defense, legislate
interstate commerce, determine foreigh policy, and collect taxes for
these functions.  I do NOT want them legislating speed limits, drug
laws, building codes, welfare, education, art, abortion, etc.

So, I am one feminist, and suspect I am not the only one, who believes
that the special interests of feminism do not outweigh the need for a
representative government as I believe ours was originally conceived
to be.  Our country is just too diverse for people to be best
represented by a central agency.

Judy