Author Archives: G.S. Griffin

Yes, Liberals and Atheists Believe in Absolute Truth

Posted on by under Religion

As America enters what has been called a “post-truth” age, when “objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief,” certain sectors of the populace — the liberals, the atheists, the youths — are being attacked for allegedly denying “absolute truth” in favor of “relativistic truth” (or “objective” for “subjective” truth).

Take for example an article from the conservative Federalist right after the election entitled “The Left Decries Our Post-Truth Society While Pushing the Ideas That Fuel It.” Naturally, no actual evidence is offered that the Left abandons facts for emotions more readily than the Right, but the sentiment is clear. The author asks the liberal media criticizing the witless Trump voters who believe most anything despite not a shred of evidence, from Obama being a secret Muslim to 3-5 million illegal votes being cast in the 2016 election:

Where have you been all these years as America has abandoned truth for relativism especially in higher learning (and now in all levels of education)? Haven’t you been paying attention as we have put emotion over facts in just about every sphere of society? Our nation has been abandoning objective truth for more than a century! What did you think would result?

This sudden outcry against post-truth reminds me of the vapors so many had when they heard the Trump “Grab her by the p—” tape. Suddenly, people who had been telling us there’s no right and wrong—no objective values or morality by which we can judge others—switched gears and became Puritans in a flash…

My response to those to those now worried about this “post-truth society” is “You reap what you sow.” This abandonment of objective facts for emotion is the inevitable result of our culture’s unrelenting commitment to moral relativism.

Likewise, one can’t help but notice no evidence is offered to support the notion that Americans of the modern era are more likely to accept emotion-based appeals over fact-based appeals compared to those of over a century ago. But more important to our purposes here is that the writer isn’t actually speaking of absolute truth (what is fact?), she is speaking of absolute morality (what is ethically right?).

The same conflation was made by the Christian satire site Babylon Bee, which ran the article “Culture in Which All Truth is Relative Suddenly Concerned About Fake News,” which featured a fictional interviewee:

American society, while typically rejecting concepts like absolute truth and objective moral standards, is suddenly showing grave concern for the rise of fabricated news stories…

One Oregon man, who rejects the idea that humanity can even be sure the universe exists in any meaningful sense, was nonetheless disturbed by the idea that websites could publish completely false information, for anyone in the world to read.

“It’s just absolutely wrong, in my opinion,” said the man who doesn’t believe in absolute ideals of right and wrong at all. “What if someone reads the information and gets like, deceived? That just seems totally wicked.”

“It just doesn’t seem right that they can publish stuff that’s just blatantly not true,” added the man, who also noted his firm belief that everyone has the right to define their own version of truth.

All this is one of the most poorly thought-out straw man arguments posited by the religious Right.

Most liberals and nonreligious persons believe in absolute truth (just another word for “reality”) just as most conservatives and religious people do. If we define relative truth in its most meaningful form — belief that reality is a matter of opinion — while putting aside other definitions — that we cannot know with certainty what reality is (are we in a computer simulation?), that different cultures in different ages have varying views on what reality is (where does the sun go at night?), and other ideas folks like Nietzsche mean when they say things like “There are no eternal facts as there are no absolute truths” — one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who takes the idea seriously.

As mortals, we try to understand the nature of reality, we believe different things concerning it, and we bicker among ourselves with enthusiasm on the subject. But very few human beings think different opinions equate to different literal realities. Liberals do not suppose that because they believe Obama is not Muslim and some conservatives do that both parties side with equal “truths.” Rather, one is correct and the other incorrect. Likewise, the notion that there both is no god and that there is a god is not something atheists suggest just because some disbelieve and some believe. They cannot both be true, and no one supposes they are. People are generally the same: they believe they know the absolute truth and others don’t. They don’t think reality is a matter of opinion.

However, when conservatives and religious fundamentalists speak of absolute truth this is usually and clearly code for something else entirely. As you see from the articles above, they often mean “absolute morality” or “objective morality.” Yet this is different from absolute truth (if we’re going to bother using definitions of any meaning).

Absolute morality is allegedly a fixed code of ethical behavior that did not originate with human beings. Rather, it was decreed by a god and we creatures are responsible for figuring out what it is — what is right and wrong — and living by it.

Naturally, no, nonreligious people of any political persuasion tend to not believe in absolute morality. They do not think there is any set right and wrong beyond what humans create for ourselves. They believe evolutionary biology and human interactions within unique societies change ideas of right and wrong over time, as evidenced by scientific and historical knowledge. With morality rooted in biological and societal influences, it is indeed purely relative, not absolute in any manner. We simply judge people’s actions as right or wrong on the basis that they do not align with our own, not because we have a guidebook from a deity. Morality is opinion-based. That is what I believe.

(And in doing so consider myself closer to the absolute truth on where morality comes from and how it functions than some! Do not think it clever to say, “Well, you don’t believe X is always wrong, so you don’t believe in absolute truth.” That is like saying, “You don’t believe winter to be the worst season, so you don’t believe in absolute truth.” Humans have different opinions, not different literal realities. Disbelieving in objective morality does not mean you disbelieve in objective truth. I think it is absolute truth that what’s right and wrong is not absolute: not objective, not set by God or independent of humanity.)

But one sees the muddle that conflating absolute truth and absolute morality creates in the articles quoted. A discourse on facts devolves for some bizarre reason into one on what’s ethical. So people believing ludicrously untrue things (“alternative facts”) is blamed on nonbelievers or more liberal people accepting that what’s ethical is subject to change and a matter of perspective. Do we see how absurd this is? How this is assigning a cause that is not necessarily true? Because I think what’s ethical is opinion-based I’m more vulnerable to thinking the precise size of the president’s inauguration crowd, whether the former president was born in Kenya, or whether God exists is opinion-based? Wouldn’t religious conservatives then be more immune to such rumors, rather than their main perpetrators? Might it be more sensible to suppose people believe ludicrously untrue things because they lack critical thinking skills, historical knowledge, or myriad other explanations?

At other times, however, “absolute truth” is simply used to mean God. “God is absolute truth, you don’t believe in God, therefore you don’t believe in absolute truth.” This is of course a definition that makes the term meaningless. “Reality” is really the only helpful definition of “absolute truth.” After all, anyone can simply make up a term for God and marvel that someone else doesn’t believe in it. “You don’t believe in absolute awesomeness? No wonder our society is falling apart.”

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On the Origins of Capitalism

Posted on by under Socialism

Put simply, capitalism is an economic system characterized by the private ownership of business and industry, where earning a profit by selling a good or service is each owner’s basic and necessary goal. Private firms compete to seize a larger and larger share of a given market, to meet (and, in the modern world of advertising, create) the demands of the greatest possible number of consumers, the ultimate success being driving one’s competitors out by underselling them. The capitalist (the owner) can take a greater piece of the market with each competitor that goes under, resulting in more profits. Profits not only enrich the capitalist personally, they allow the firm to expand into markets in other cities, nations, or continents. They allow a commodity to be sold at a lower price. They provide opportunities for investment in new technologies that reduce the cost of production, the number of hours needed to create a commodity, and the number of workers the capitalist needs to employ.

But to accomplish all these things, the capitalist needs workers. He needs them to produce and sell his product at a rate and on a scale he cannot do himself. The workers need currency to survive, so they sell their labor to the capitalists for a wage. The capitalist exploits the workers, as it is the workers who create the wealth. Workers construct the good or provide the service, thus producing the wealth, which is controlled, and pocketed, by the capitalist. The capitalist awards herself much while keeping worker wages as low as possible–to increase profits. The capitalist holds all decision-making power, making capitalism authoritarian as well as a grand theft from the people who generate wealth. Capitalism is the few growing rich off the labor of the many.

Capitalism was a revolutionary change that brought with it unimaginable advances in technology and living standards. While its negative impacts on human society (exploitation and theft, authoritarianism, environmental destruction, etc.) are clear, it also had a positive impact, and one need not read Marxist literature long to notice many authors give an appreciative nod to its inception and early development, an example of which you will see below. Capitalism is still a young enterprise—it has not existed since the beginning of time. As British socialist Chris Harman writes, “Capitalism as a way of organizing the whole production of a country is barely three or four centuries old. As a way of organizing the whole production of the world, it is at most 150 years old” (How Marxism Works). Competition between private firms that use wage-labor has been the driving force of human economics for but a moment in the lifetime of our race, so those who view capitalism as the zenith of economic progress may one day be disappointed. Modern humans have been on earth for 100,000 years and, as Harman notes, “it would be remarkable indeed if a way of running things that has existed for less than 0.5 percent of our species’ lifespan were to endure for the rest of it.”

Much older than capitalism is the division of society into classes, and it is important to understand the origins and societal effects of this phenomenon in order to understand the rise of capitalism.

For 95,000 years, most human societies were characterized by “primitive communism,” in which labor was cooperative and resources were distributed equally or according to need. Anthropologist Richard Lee writes, “Before the rise of the state and the entrenchment of social inequality, people lived for millennia in small-scale kin-based social groups, in which the core institutions of economic life included collective or common ownership of land and resources, generalised reciprocity in the distribution of food, and relatively egalitarian political relations” (see Harman). People’s survival depended on cooperation, which necessitated a classless form of social organization and political leadership. Sometimes, men and women had equal power, and revered leaders usually worked alongside everyone else. Many Native American nations were structured like this only a century ago, and some isolated aboriginal tribes still are in the Pacific and South America.

Human society started changing when agricultural surpluses during the Urban Revolution of 10,000-5,000 B.C. created the specialization of work, which gave rise to class divisions, the State, and the exploitation of the masses under an economic system called feudalism. New technologies allowed food production (and the human population) to explode, and it became necessary for certain individuals in each community to guard and manage stored food. That fell to leaders who had once worked alongside the people, often religious leaders. When cooperation was no longer required for survival, social structures became divided into upper and lower classes. We see that in the most ancient of nation-states, such as Egypt. Those divisions have characterized the last 5% of human existence.

So most human societies now had a small minority of rulers and a huge majority of laborers, and all the exploitation and inequality that comes with such a structure. Though capitalism has similar characteristics, feudalism dominated human societies from 5,000 B.C. to the 15th century A.D. Workers labored not for capitalists who compete with other firms for more profits and market control, but to provide wealth and luxury to powerful heads of state. Harman explains:

The emergence of civilisation is usually thought of as one of the great steps forward in human history—indeed, as the step that separates history from prehistory. But it was accompanied wherever it happened by other, negative changes: by the development for the first time of class divisions, with a privileged minority living off the labour of everyone else, and by the setting up of bodies of armed men, of soldiers and secret police—in other words, a state machine—so as to enforce this minority’s rule on the rest of society.

Under feudalism, your resources and labor were devoted to pharaoh, the emperor, the king, or to your local feudal lord. The vast majority of people worked in agriculture, and did not sell their labor for a wage (soldiers were a notable exception). Production was limited to self-contained estates, and workers (“serfs”) were stuck in unshakable caste systems. One did not expect his or her lot in life to improve or change in any way before death. Most people exchanged their labor for protection, turning over large portions of their produce to the lord and receiving in return the protection of the lord’s armies from bandits and enemy lords, though of course this “exchange” was usually forced upon the poor through conquest and violence. Serfs were by no means allowed to leave as they chose—that would hurt the rulers. There was widespread oppression of the peasant masses by the rulers and their armies, and by the church as well, which demanded portions of crops as tithes.

During this time, there were small numbers of artisans, merchants, and traders in towns selling goods for individual profit, but they worked alone, as a family, or with an apprentice. There were also those who loaned money. But merchants held no economic power over others. Like peasants, they produced a good or service in order to survive, but their goods had to be exchanged for money so the family could in turn purchase agricultural produce. Money had little significance beyond a lord’s need to pay soldiers for their services or a merchant’s need for a means to put food on the table. True wealth was in land. It gave workers a way to feed themselves, and lords sought land through conquest to gain more resources, workers, and power—to live in greater luxury. So the work output of most people enriched the lives of the nobility, and under such a system there was little means for workers to improve production techniques or technology.

But things slowly changed in the 15th century. In Europe, plague destroyed a huge percentage of the population in the 14th century. The surviving nobles demanded more and more goods from the merchants in the towns. Towns thus became more important and more work opened up there for roaming free laborers and escaped serfs. The surviving peasants seized the best land from the dead, and were able to produce more. As a result, trade networks sprung up, markets grew more important in feudal society than isolated production on estates, and living standards rose. Exploration, conquest, and the enslavement of foreign lands and people led to globalization and international trade that made some merchants rich alongside kings, queens, and men of the church.

The “putting-out system” provided peasants a new way of making a living and thus weakened the economic power of the feudal lord. It was also an infant form of capitalist exploitation. Merchants bought the raw materials needed to make a commodity, and paid poor peasants to carry out production. Thus, “the direct robbery of the products of peasant labour was replaced by a system in which individual workers voluntarily accepted less than the full value of their products in return for being supplied with raw materials or tools” (Harman, A People’s History of the World). The poor had not the resources to buy or own the means of production—the raw materials and technology. To survive they were forced to accept whatever payment the merchant offered. Payment was dismal, as the merchant desired and needed profit—money from the sale of a good left over after all production and labor costs had been paid—to continue and improve his way of life. He kept wages low to keep more money for himself.

Importantly, for the common people wealth could be now be amassed in currency. Survival could be ensured by selling one’s labor for a wage (one who did so Marxists called a proletarian, an employer of wage labor being the bourgeois, the merchant, the capitalist). Over the next four centuries, merchants increasingly supervised production (though it was a very slow change, as until the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s and early 1800s the vast majority of people still did not work for a wage, were not employees of someone else; see Curl, For All the People). New technologies revolutionized production and garnered huge profits. Markets became global. The merchant class grew larger and richer, and more industries were organized under firms with one person employing a larger and larger labor force. Industrial capitalism was born. Marx observed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848:

Modern industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overseer and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

Yet American socialist Michael Harrington called capitalism “the greatest achievement of humankind in history” because “political power no longer had to be authoritarian, for it had ceased to be the principal instrument of economic coercion” (Socialism: Past and Future). Private ownership and competition weakened the power of feudal lords, though “the shifts in social structure opened up possibilities of freedom and justice, not inevitabilities.” In many ways, capitalism helped push the world in that direction. Marx wrote the bourgeoisie “put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors.'” Unfortunately, the change only substituted one form of minority rule for another. The power of the church and of ruling dynasties declined, and the power of the capitalist class increased. “In one word,” Marx wrote, “for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, [the capitalist class] has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.”

He also noted, “Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class,” from “an oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility” to today, where “the executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Within each nation, as a capitalist class grew and gained colossal wealth, it gained political power, advancing to the top of the social hierarchy, until it “conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway.”

Over the centuries, capitalists solidified control of political power, and in many ways this slowed down the development of liberty and democracy. It was no longer the king or feudal lord oppressing the class of businessmen and the class of laborers, it was the class of wealthy ruling businessmen (like George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton  in the United States) oppressing the class of laborers. To repeat what Dr. King wrote, “[Capitalism] started out with a noble and high motive, viz., to block the trade monopolies of nobles, but like most human systems it fell victim to the very thing it was revolting against.” New oppressors took over, and like back then the governments of many advanced societies today mostly serve the interests of big business, because politicians are also business leaders or are bought off by them in the form of lobbying, campaign contributions, and so on.

As under feudalism, the majority experienced barbaric treatment at the hands of the minority, not just physical mistreatment in deadly working conditions but also the robbery of their wealth, the wealth workers created with their own hands. The capitalist owners exploited the labor of the people, keeping them poor and desperate while enriching themselves, a problem that still exists. To quote The Communist Manifesto:

The history of all past society has consisted in the development of class antagonisms, antagonisms that assumed different forms at different epochs. But whatever forms they may have taken, one fact is common to all past ages, viz., the exploitation of one part of society by the other. No wonder, then, that the social consciousness of past ages, despite all the multiplicity and variety it displays, moves within certain common forms, or general ideas, which cannot completely vanish except with the total disappearance of class antagonisms.

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Which Religion is the Primary Victim of ISIS Genocide?

Posted on by under Politics

In March 2016, Secretary of State John Kerry declared the Islamic State (also called ISIS or Daesh), an Sunni extremist group controlling territory in Syria and Iraq, guilty of genocide.

“In my judgment, Daesh is responsible for genocide against groups in territory under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims,” Kerry said in a speech at the State Department. According to NPR, this is the sixth time the United States officially labeled state or group actions abroad in this way, the previous instance being against Sudan in 2004 (Darfur).

Kerry was under pressure from Congress to make such a declaration; Republicans and Democrats joined together in the House of Representatives and voted 393-0 on Monday to call ISIS actions genocidal. Congress set Thursday as the deadline for the State Department to accept or reject the designation, a deadline many expected the Obama administration to miss.

Kerry did not suggest that military action against ISIS would increase, the main objective of many politicians, particularly Republicans, that sought the designation. The U.S. currently targets and bombs both known and suspected ISIS operatives using unmanned drones, a tactic that protects the lives of American servicemen but also kills far more innocent bystanders than it does terrorists, according to multiple sources, and aids in terrorist recruiting efforts, inspiring further violence.

ISIS crimes against humanity include mass public executions, torture and mutilation, crucifixion, rape, kidnapping, sex trafficking, expulsion, destruction of places of worship, and forced conversion. Members have set about “stoning alleged adulterers to death and throwing gay men off buildings to their death and using child executioners,” to quote the International Business Times. Shia Muslims, Christians, and Yazidis (who worship one God, honor seven angels who look over the Earth, and believe in reincarnation) are the main targets of ISIS, whose members wish to subjugate others to Sunni Islam (the “true,” “pure” Islam) and their new caliphate.

Journalist Amy Goodman claimed that “ISIS has killed more Muslims than certainly members of any other religion,” which is likely accurate. Shia Muslims (13% of Syrians, 60-65% of Iraqis) have likely lost the most civilians at the hands of ISIS, followed by Yazidis (less than 1% of Syrians and Iraqis) and Christians (10% of Syrians, less than 1% of Iraqis).

In the first 8 months of 2014, ISIS killed 8,500 civilians in Iraq (a country with very few Christians), according to a U.N. report. From mid-2014 to late 2015, ISIS executed an estimated 10,000 people in Syria and Iraq, including 2,000 civilians in Syria and 3,000 civilians in Iraq. Thousands more people have died in suicide bombings, in battles, and massacres. For example, nearly 1,700 Iraqi Air Force cadets, mostly Shia, were murdered at Camp Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq in June 2014 and up to 5,000 Yazidi were mowed down in August 2014 in Sinjar Province, Iraq. Those events are not included in the 10,000 tally. The Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians identified some 1,100 Christians killed by ISIS in the report they sent to Kerry on March 9.

The reports caution these estimates are conservative — the precise number of deaths among all these groups is unknown, but likely higher.

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Who Belongs in Kansas City?

Posted on by under Politics

Three weeks after the election, I found myself sitting between two men: a black man on my right, a white man on my left.

We sat together at the Shoal Creek Police Station in north Kansas City. The black man and I were under arrest for participating in a peaceful act of civil disobedience in support of a higher minimum wage and union rights for Kansas City workers. We’d known each other for a few hours. The white man was a drunk stranger, I believe hauled in for domestic violence.

My companion and I were forced to listen for an extended time to this man’s thoughts, some incoherent, others insensitive, a few overtly racist. We tried to counter some of this, but the man was in no condition to be reasoned with.

Civil disobedience “won’t do anything,” he said, a smug smile on his lips as he readied the punchline. “All you’re doing is disrupting the crack flow in the inner city.”

He explained that Somalis are foolish because they choose to drive taxis instead of finding better work, and how poor Americans in general need to work harder (as hard as he) and get off welfare.

He spoke of how native Africans are poor “because they’re just so stupid,” and how if I ever started a business I should take on my black comrade as a partner because “he looks like he could use a helping hand, if you know what I mean.”

This angered me, but as a white man my indignation was only against attacks on others; it’s not the hotter anger of one who is personally demeaned and defamed. I wondered what my companion was feeling at that moment. When I was able to put aside for a second my embarrassment that a fellow white person, intoxicated or not, would say such things in the presence of a black man, or at all, I saw my companion was stone-faced, eyes observing something far away, something I couldn’t see.

Perhaps it was memories. He’d seen and heard such things before. Perhaps he was simply trying to quell the anger toward this slander against where he lived, his work ethic, his ancestors from another continent, who he was.

I didn’t speak to him about it after our release. But I imagine he didn’t feel like he belonged.

Like the nation as a whole, Kansas City struggles to be a place where all people feel like they belong. That our city should be such a home is not the unrealistic demand of “sensitive, entitled snowflakes” who “get offended by everything.” It is the basic ideal of the American experiment, that all people are created equal, worthy of the same dignity, respect, and human rights. In a decent American society, that lived up to its principles, every person would feel like he or she belonged.

Clearly, this is not yet the case. The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded nearly 900 hate incidents in the ten days following Donald Trump’s election. Trump supporters were emboldened, validated, and set about verbally and physically attacking the people Trump demeaned and vilified. Women were grabbed by the genitals, homosexuals beaten, hijabs ripped off Muslim girls, blacks called “niggers,” Jews called “kikes,” Hispanics mocked and told to leave the country. Vandalism featured swastikas, nooses, and racial slurs.

Whites and Trump supporters were victims also, to a small degree. 23 incidents, or 2.6%, were anti-Trump, and some included physical violence. All hate crimes are wrong and must be condemned, and all hate crimes make someone feel like he or she does not belong. But we cannot pretend all groups experience hate crimes equally. As The Star noted on January 6, only 10.5% of all hate crimes in 2015 were directed against whites (a typical percentage), even though the U.S. is still nearly 70% white. We also must not pretend hate crimes against one group cannot be a reaction to hate crimes against another. Such things do not always come from the same place.

What was the Kansas City experience? A black Kansas Citian found a swastika and noose spray-painted on his car. Alongside “Hail President Trump,” racial slurs, misogynistic slurs, and swastikas were left inside the Kansas City Public Library downtown. A Muslim business owner received threatening phone calls, and “white power!” was shouted at him in person. A student drew a Klansman saying “Kill all blacks!” at Piper High School. A gay man was beat, had a gun put to his head, and had “fag” spray-painted on his car. “Alt-Right” advertisements appeared saying “America was 90% white in 1950. It is now 60%. Make America Great Again.” A white man shot three people, killing one, while hunting down Arabs — he yelled “Get out of my country!” (The victim’s grieving wife, in a public statement, asked, “Do we belong here? Is this the same country we dreamed of?”) Further, a group of teenagers assaulted a white man they thought was a Trump supporter. Anti-white statements like “Kill Whitey” were scribbled on walls of a UMKC building.

Even before election day, things were getting bad. In 2015, religious hate crimes in KC rose 60%, most against Muslims, while general hate crimes rose 35%.

While there has been a great amount of progress in Kansas City since its Jim Crow era, since the heyday of its anti-immigrant and anti-religious minority hysteria, since its very beginning as a slave society in the early 1800s, there is still much work to do to make this city a place where everyone feels like they belong. But how can this be accomplished?

One way is to ensure local and national laws protect the freedom and equality of all people. Many will ask: if the law does not offer all the same respect, why should the individual? We must push for moral and fair public policy. That must be Kansas City’s response to proposals like mass deportations, the registration of Muslims, the repeal of same-sex marriage, the return of stop-and-frisk, and so on.

This is done through people’s movements, when ordinary people come together to force the government to yield to their demands. Progress always comes on the backs of troublemakers: those who organize, agitate, petition, protest, march, strike, sit-in, and engage in civil disobedience. When the powerful realize the trouble will not stop — only grow — until demands are met, they surrender. If enough people unite, they can shut down a city, a state, or an entire country. From Kansas City’s Valentine’s Day strike of 1918, in which 15,000 workers brought the city to a halt, to India’s 2016 strike of 180 million workers that did the same to a nation, the people have the power to take whatever they want — by simply leaving their workplaces and flooding the streets. This will occur in Kansas City whenever injustice rears its ugly head. We saw it at the inauguration day march from Union Station to City Hall, the Women’s March in Kansas City, and the protest at MCI against the immigration ban.

A second way is to help change the way others think. Make no mistake, the activism described above can make bystanders think differently. But in general, Kansas Citians must encourage each other to hold one another to the same standards — that is, you must offer the same rights, respect, kindness, and dignity to others that you expect. That simple maxim, which almost all profess to believe in, could transform society if actually followed.

Under such a rule, one would think registering Muslims as ludicrous as registering Christians. Immigration bans would be a thing of the past, because ethical societies don’t punish the many for the crimes of the few. Tearing apart families by deporting good men and women who came to the U.S. illegally to escape poverty and violence would be unthinkable, because no one would want that done to their family. Homosexuality would be accepted as a natural human trait, like heterosexuality, with marriage rights protected for all. Discriminatory policing against black folk would be under constant attack by all white Americans, who would not want to be subjected to such mistreatment. All men would likewise be up in arms against the constant sexual harassment against women, light sentences for rapists, and other trademarks of rape culture. Hate crimes and everyday racist comments, no matter who against, would be found only in the history books.

That would be a much better society, a Kansas City where all people lived without fear and with a sense of belonging. Such a society is ours to create.

When my black comrade and I were released, we sat in a warm van with many others who were trickling out of the police station.

“You think we made a difference?” he asked, to no one in particular.

I thought of all the ordinary troublemakers before us who had protested and been arrested: those who fought for decent wages and the 40 hour workweek, the end of child labor, equal rights for women, people of color, religious minorities, and LGBT people, and the end of bloody wars like Vietnam. Those men and women rose up against exploitation, injustice, and bigotry. Surely they asked themselves the same question, and surely there was only one correct answer.

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Why the Women Marched

Posted on by under Politics

Conservative criticism of the Women’s March on Washington seems to be revolving around several poorly considered ideas.

First, the notion that the march was simply a tantrum thrown by sore losers. Second, that women already have all the rights that men do, so why are they bothering? Third, that it is hypocritical to oppose a man who says vile things about and does vile things to women but support a woman who is married to a man who acts in a similar way. There are other criticisms, of course (“Feminists want to emasculate and oppress men!”), too absurd to be worthy of comment.

Let’s consider each point in turn, but first note the obvious: the people who are confused as to what the purpose or motives of the march was probably did not actually bother to read the mission, vision, or principles put forth by the organizers. They likely did not attend the march. They may not have even bothered to ask their friends, male or female, why they personally went. I personally feel that if people were inclined to do such things, the misinformation would not be so egregious. I can’t pretend to speak for every woman that went, but by doing those things I got a fairly informed idea as to what it was all about.

Let’s think through the first point. Was it simply that the Republican candidate won and the Democratic one lost? Is it just liberals being sore losers, without any other context? Well, no thinking person actually believes this. The Women’s March was likely the largest single-day protest in national history, with over 3 million Americans participating. Would we have seen such an event if Marco Rubio had been elected? If Jeb Bush beat Hillary Clinton? Is the victory of every Republican presidential candidate followed by historic-sized protests? Perhaps the protest has more to do with anger over the words and actions of the person elected, rather than the simple fact that he won.

Second, while it is true women have roughly the same legal rights as men, there is a certain right men could never possibly need but women might. That is, the right to an abortion. The Women’s March wasn’t solely about abortion rights (another conservative misconception), but it was a big part of it. The principles included “open access to safe, legal, affordable abortion and birth control for all people, regardless of income, location or education.” Now, staunchly pro-life people won’t agree with that, which is fine. But women (and men) who are pro-choice believe the right to an abortion should be protected and know it is currently under attack, from Texas (which slashed funding for clinics, forcing all but 20 to close in a state with 13 million women) to Ohio (which joined 15 other states in enacting a ban on abortions after 20 weeks). Again, this may sound like good news to you if you are conservative, but the point is that abortion is a right protesters sought to protect. They wanted to voice opposition to anti-abortion policies Trump and Republicans support and will likely move to enact.

Also on the subject of rights is women’s pay. Many conservatives have made it clear they either believe unequal pay for equal work is a myth or don’t even understand what it means (“My man makes more than me because his job is manual labor and mine isn’t”; “Look at how rich this woman is! The idea we’re paid less is stupid”). It’s the radical idea that a woman with comparable education and experience as a man would make the same as him in the same field or industry. Yes, the wage gap is partly explained by men dominating certain high-paying fields (which in turn is partly explained by sexism in schools, which can slowly push girls away from lucrative fields like STEM), but unequal pay for equal work and equal qualifications within the same field is also a real problem. As the Economic Policy Institute put it,

Women are paid less than similarly educated men at every level of education. And the wage gap tends to rise with education level… Women who work in male-dominated occupations are paid significantly less than similarly educated males in those occupations. So even recommending that women choose better-paying occupations does not solve the problem.

Whether or not you trust research into the matter is your business, but just know that protesters do trust this is a problem and wish to voice dissent.

Beyond equal pay, there’s sexism in general. The EPI summarizes:

One famous study found that switching to blind auditions led to a significantly higher proportion of female musicians in orchestras (Goldin and Rouse 1997).

An experimental study of résumés submitted for job openings found bias against women and mothers and a preference for male applicants (Steinpreis, Anders, and Ritzke 1999). Another résumé study showed discrimination against women in the sciences (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012).

Researchers have also found that women are viewed as less competent than men, and that mothers are judged as even less competent than childless women (Ridgeway and Correll 2004).

There are of course other issues, such as the fact that any boy under 18 can buy condoms without a problem, but girls face all kinds of legal barriers to birth control in many states. But abortion, equal hiring practices, and equal pay are the main legal rights women seek to maintain or achieve.

However, this was only part of the event. An equally important matter was standing up to sexual harassment and sexual violence. This protest was not the whine of a losing side in a typical election, it was an outburst of anger against the disrespect and abuse Trump exhibited and the culture that too often excuses, tolerates, or embraces such things — tolerates to the point of voting for a vile man like Trump. Boasting of grabbing women by the vagina, calling women fat, ugly pigs, saying Hillary Clinton couldn’t satisfy her husband, making jokes to women about blow jobs, and going to trial for rape would, in a sensible world, enrage everyone. Most of the speeches, signs, and shirts I saw, and the conversations I heard, were about sexual violence, sometimes Trump’s, sometimes someone else’s. From demeaning catcalls to nasty comments (a government official in New Mexico said women protesting “have the right to be slapped”) to the absurdly light sentences for vicious rapists, feminist liberals wish to build a society where women are safe, treated with respect, and see justice done to the worst of humanity. Surely everyone, regardless of political persuasion, can support what the organizers wrote, that women should be “free of all forms of violence against our bodies.” Days after the march, Oklahoma ruled that oral sex is not rape if the victim is unconscious from drinking.

Which brings us to the third and final point, the infidelities of Bill Clinton and the rape accusations against him, and how these things affect whether the Women’s March was an event worthy of praise or scorn. Conservatives posit: “This march wouldn’t have taken place if Hillary Clinton had won. You oppose Trump and his nastiness, yet support Hillary, whose husband is a cheater, a liar, and an accused rapist. That’s hypocrisy.”

Well, one might suppose not all of the 3 million American marchers supported or voted for Hillary. How many Bernie Sanders loyalists were there, for instance? Just because one despises Trump’s words and deeds against women does not mean he or she is a fan of Hillary or Bill Clinton. Perhaps some, like me, are critics of both. Regardless, even assuming all attendees voted for Hillary, there are obvious problems with this idea.

Most sensible people would consider Hillary a victim in this regard. She was cheated on countless times, likely lied to. Should she be punished for the crimes of her unfaithful husband? I think not — even if she stayed with him to maintain political power and opportunities. He should be frowned upon for infidelity and thrown in prison if rape charges are determined to be true. But his wife shouldn’t have to wear a badge of shame because of what he did. Hillary is the victim of Bill’s infidelity, and that in no way means people should automatically not support or vote for her. Unless she is staying mum about Bill raping women, which there is no evidence for, she is an innocent bystander to his crimes (if factual). Believe it or not, one could support imprisoning someone for a crime and support his wife, a victim, in her career pursuits. Hillary is not Bill.

In the same way I do not pretend Bill was running for president, I do not yet suppose he and Trump are of the same character. If they are both one day found guilty of rape, they can rot in prison together and we can call them equally awful men. But put aside the accusations against both for a moment; suppose they are all false. At the time of the election, and the march, and today, neither person was tried and convicted of rape. So what is left? Bill is a cheating husband, but not known for demeaning women. Trump still brags of sexual assault, tears down women for their appearance, and makes lewd remarks about contestants on his show, political enemies, etc. So is it hypocrisy to protest Trump but not Bill over how they treat women? Perhaps there is a tinge of hypocrisy, but not much. When it comes down to it, if using what we know at the moment, Donald Trump is more worthy of a protest than Bill Clinton when it comes to the treatment of women. If you add in the other stated principles of the Women’s March (like “Disability Rights” and “Civil Rights”) and consider Trump’s treatment of other groups (disabled Americans, Muslims) compared to Bill’s, this might make the case that Trump deserves a Women’s March more than Bill even stronger. His support for restrictions on abortion and other right-wing policies would make the case stronger still, in the eyes of those on the left.

(Conservatives speaking of hypocrisy should ask themselves: If Bill is worthy of protest and disdain, is not Trump worthy of even more? Those crying hypocrisy shouldn’t be saying the Women’s March, this stand against Trump, was wrong. They should be saying it was right. More specifically, “It was the right thing to do, but you should protest against Bill as well, to avoid hypocrisy.” The alternative is to protest neither. But that does no good for anyone — including Bill’s alleged victims. Liberals must ask ourselves: If Trump is worthy of protest, is Bill? I think Trump is much more worthy of protest than Bill, yet am not opposed to a mass stand against infidelity or worse crimes that he committed. I believe both would be positive things. If conservatives wish to make accusations of hypocrisy, they must also decide if both are right or if both are wrong. Currently, the absence of a theoretical march against injustice is being used to criticize a march against injustice.)

The idea that Trump is more worthy of a protest than Bill (putting aside unconfirmed accusations) when it comes to treatment of women is my view, and you are free to think differently. However, given that view, you can see why I don’t see much hypocrisy between a Women’s March for Trump and none for a theoretical First Man Bill Clinton. Same for opposing Trump’s presidential campaign in general but supporting Hillary’s. For there to be full-blown hypocrisy, different standards must be applied to two things that are essentially the same.

A man running for president is not the same as a man married to a woman running for president. Committing infidelity is not the same as committing sexual assault. A man may be worthy of protest, but a worse man can be even more worthy. And so on.

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