Fox News Host, Tucker Carlson, Outraged Over Loss Of Manliness

image credit thinkaboutitknowaboutit.com

Yet again a Fox News host has illustrated how out of touch conservatives are with the world as we know it. In an embarrassing display of misogynistic absurdity, Tucker Carlson, host of Fox's 'Outnumbered,' went on a tirade about his belief that the 'manliness' of men is under attack.

“Part of it is somebody told boys when they were little, ‘Be sensitive, be thoughtful.’ And some of that’s fine, too much of it makes you pretty unattractive to women. And this is one of the reasons, because it suggests weakness.”

Of course it should come as no surprise that Fox's female cohost agreed, and then blamed it on the 'feminist movement.'

“I blame it on the feminist movement,” 

Katie Pavlich said. She continued with:

 “Because the feminist movement for decades has told men not to embraces their manliness, that is part of the patriarchy of our society. And that being a man is a bad thing. And that you should downgrade your manliness. And saying ‘man up’ is not acceptable because manning up is not based on gender. They have all these things where they take the man part out of being a man, and then we wonder why men don’t act like men anymore.”

Carlson went on to deride men and women for daring to decide without his help, who should pay for dinner.

“Men, who on the second date, let their date pay for dinner, I’m sorry that’s disgusting, and I don’t care. The new norms are — he shouldn’t allow it. Period.”

The Faux Christian gender stereotype is a lie.

It's past time that women put right wing Christian men in their place. I've been looking for a good reason to do just that. While these men seek to use religion and culture to subjugate women, their misogynistic views actually have nothing to do with the Bible. Sadly, older women and Christian women have swallowed the lie that rigid gender roles are 'what God intended.' 

The New Testament makes it very clear that gender roles and stereotypes based on skin color, culture or economic class are not even close to what the Christian God had in mind. In fact, the idea of equality is presented in no uncertain terms in the New Testament. 

The book of Galatians, chapter 3, verse 28 says:

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (NIV)

Does it get any more clear than that? 

Contrary to right wing lies, the Christian Bible provides a very strong foundation for the elimination of gender roles. Of course nut jobs like Carlson or this minister who said the United States should ban women from voting, would never quote Galatians 3:28. That's simply because it doesn't serve the purpose of helping to keep women subservient and preserving the male power structure within society. 

But if seeking to eliminate gender roles and stereotypes in society is evil, then the Christian God must be evil, since the concept is clearly spelled out in the Bible. The real evil is in the male power structure, in combination with the right wing agenda, that would lead to the virtual enslavement of every other person, to the white male faux Christian. 

These are people who try to use religion as means of exalting themselves, gaining and maintaining power, controlling other people and promoting themselves at the expense of others. In their egotism,they really believe that God placed them on some pedestal above all of the other people on earth, especially women. 

If anyone has been ensnared by the devil, it's the right wing Christians, who have thrown out the idea of humility and servitude, in exchange for the idea that what Christians are supposed to do is force others to submit to their will. 

Here's a video of the misogynistic rant, from The Raw Story. 

How The United States Is Failing The Moral Test

The true test of our character never lies in times of ease or abundance. Our character is tested in times of pain, in times of hardship, in times of tribulation and sorrow.

Over the past decade the character of our society has been tested repeatedly, and we have repeatedly failed the test. We've failed to live up to our own standards, failed to rise above our temporary circumstances, to remain true to the moral and ethical code that has been handed down to us by our founding fathers, built upon through the generations who followed them.

In times of economic hardship, we turned on our neighbors, our elders and even our own children. We've shaken our fist and stomped our feet at the poorest and weakest among us. We've attacked the foreigner and the immigrant, who came to our shores seeking safe haven and a better way of life.

We've screeched louder than the demons of hell about the burden of caring for the sick. We've shown that we'd sooner see old men become homeless and children turned away from the school lunch line, than to dig in our pockets, pay our taxes and assume the responsibility of caring for the weakest members of our society.

In 2001 we were tested. When the twin towers fell to earth in flames, taking with them our fellow citizens, our neighbors, friends and loved ones, we responded by crying out for blood. As history has revealed to us, we didn't care whose blood it was, what we wanted was to punish, to do harm to someone, in return for the harm that was done to us. We allowed ourselves to be deceived, to be led off to war against our perceived enemy, to decimate a country, to exterminate more than a million people, without question.

During times of war, we were tested. How did we do? We showed our willingness to go along with human torture. We demonstrated our ability to rationalize the 'rightness' of depriving others of their most basic human rights. We embraced the idea of Gitmo, of secret prisons and secret prisoners, people detained indefinitely, guilty until proven innocent, but deprived of a trial and a jury and therefore deprived of the right to be proven innocent. We showed our hypocrisy, when we cried out against the government's supposed authority to detain American citizens indefinitely, without a trial, but remained silent when we became aware that citizens of other countries were being held without the right to a trial.

Every day in the United States, our society is being tested. How are we doing? Our state sanctioned executions have become public forums for cruel and unusual punishment, and do we care? The American death panel is hard at work dreaming up new ways to kill people, testing these methods on real human beings, while families watch in horror, because this is what we demand, in the name of justice. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, self proclaimed Christians of the right wing variety claim this is the will of God. Is it? Jesus said, "You have heard it said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you do not resist an evil person." (Mathew 5:39) The words "Do not return evil for evil" are clearly spelled out in both the book of Romans and 1 Peter.

There are two paths to choose when confronted with an evil. When our daughters are raped, when our sons are murdered, we can become the thing we despise or we can take the high road, refusing to return evil for evil. How can we say that those who murder must be murdered and not understand that doing so makes us murderers, as well? Not even when state sanctioned murder becomes state sanctioned torture and murder, are we willing to demand that the state stop killing on our behalf.

Someone else is inserting the needle, not us, but that does not make us innocent. We are the death panel. We are the face of the executioner. We are the blood thirsty killers, but we're killing those who 'deserve it', so that makes it right. We're only torturing people who did bad things, therefore our torture isn't a bad thing.

It's easy to do right during times of ease. It's easy to be generous during times of plenty, to be compassionate when compassion demands little in the way of self sacrifice.It's easy to be non-violent in times of peace, to be just to our enemies, when we have none. It's easy to claim the laws of conscience and Constitution for ourselves. It's easy to do unto others as we would have them to do unto us, when the 'others' are people we know, people we deem worthy.

What these trials reveal about our society is that we live under an illusion of ourselves as civilized, just, moral, principled. Underneath the facade of "America," there lurks a monster, barbaric, brutal, violent, greedy, immoral, unjust, corrupt, inhumane, hideously ugly. The true face of the monster that we are is revealed each time we face a test, each time we are called upon to rise to a difficult challenge, but respond with violence, cruelty, hatred, selfishness and inhumanity.

Corporate America's Newest Scheme To Deprive You Of Your Constitutional Rights

Corporate America is always busy coming up with new ways to cover its own behind, at the expense of everyday people. If they aren't buying off politicians, bribing Supreme Court Justices or collaborating with other criminals at an ALEC convention, you can rest assured they're doing something else to ensure their rights trump that of the average American citizen.

Why you should beware of free offers on the web.

Almost everyone has, at one time or another, used a coupon, entered a sweepstakes or just visited a corporate website for product information. What you may not know is that doing those things could constitute an agreement to give up your legal right to sue that corporation, in a court of law. 

In mid April, the New York Times reported that General Mills had quietly changed it's policies, adding language that constitutes an agreement between the user and the company. By visiting the company's website, downloading a coupon, participating in a promotion or even liking their page on facebook, the new policy states that the user is entering into an agreement to settle any dispute related to the purchase of any General Mills product, out of court. 

As if that's not bad enough, General Mills new policy crosses the line into crazy town. According to the company's new policy, the mere of act of purchasing any of the company's products also constitutes an agreement not to sue them for any injury or harm. 

“Please note we also have new legal terms which require all disputes related to the purchase or use of any General Mills product or service to be resolved through binding arbitration.”

According to this policy, if you buy a product from General Mills in good faith, but later suffer injury, you're out of luck. If there is rat feces in your Cheerios, for example, and your entire family is hospitalized because of it, you will be required to settle your dispute through binding arbitration. 

In other words, you forfeit your legal and Constitutional rights to seek punitive damages in a court of law, if you consume any product sold by General Mills.

The 2011 Supreme Court decision you probably didn't hear about

In 2011, the US Supreme Court allowed corporations the right to deny you the right to sue them. The ruling means it's now possible for businesses like General Mills to create and enforce the kinds of 'agreements' the company put in place in April. 

Since that decision, more and more corporations are adopting these types of policies, designed to undermine consumer rights and protections under the law. By purchasing a product, liking a website, subscribing to an email list or even stepping onto a corporation's property, you may be unknowingly giving up all of your rights under the law.

The advancing corporate agenda includes buying our political system, dismantling consumer rights and protections,  eliminating local, state and federal agencies that provide regulation and oversight, getting rid of minimum wage and overturning worker's rights, among other things. It's not hard to see the direction we are heading, and it's frightening to realize how fast our rights are being eliminated.

Corporations are interested in protecting their own interests, increasing profits and lowering costs. It does not take a genius to figure out that protecting the consumer is the last thing on their agenda.

image credit Steve-Lovelace.com http://steve-lovelace.com/corporate-feudalism-the-end-of-nation-states/