Talk Elections

Let's settle this.

Write-in: Madeleine

I voted for memphis because as terrible as he is my self-image is worse.

100% Madeleine.

I can't stand that I have to side with memphis in the opebo debate. All recent posts in that thread by him are awful, and there are several others dating back that I have had problems with.

Madeleine has nearly the exact opposite political views as mine... and I would obviously vote for her over Memphis (sane, normal, etc.).

Ok, when did Nathan announce a name change? 

A couple of days prior to this petition thread I think, maybe a week.

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=203687.0 (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=203687.0)

Thanks. 

I like both of them, but memphis gets my vote for being irreligious.  Madeline should be consulting and giving advice rather than being in a position of power, methinks.

Maddy methinks.

Maddy (normal)

:(

I like both of them for very different reasons but would feel far more comfortable around Memphis.

Asexual Transvictimologist

I wonder what an electoral map of this would look like... (excepting memphis' secularism and the victimologist's gender identification, both of which would likely be less than popular in front of an American electorate)

In any case, my vote reflects the majority as expressed in this thread.

America would take the white atheist over the transsexual.  Easily.  I don't think you could take either out of the equation in a matchup like this.

Yeah, if memphis isn't antireligious and I'm not trans then at least half of the reasons we dislike each other so much in the first place disappear right there.

Madeline.

I actually think she'd win a presidential election; she'd start out as the underdog but Memphis would start talking about rape and religion and he'd tank in the polls.

Hmm, idk. Despite co-existing on this forum during both my prior incarnation and my present existence, I've never really interacted with Memphis nor paid much attention to his posts. All I  know is his avatar is D-TN. If he is somehow pro-rape as implied then he definitely would not get my vote as I detest the rape culture that is pervasive in the U.S.

Maddalena, I have mixed feelings about. Back in the summer during my first request to be unbanned I was intrigued by different religions besides my Catholic upbringing, in particular LGBTQ-affirming religions, I was told to ask the poster then known as Nathan about such religions, so I PMed him and asked him some questions about religion hoping for a thought-provoking discussion, he said he was busy but would get back to me with answers but never did even though I was in limbo on the forum for like 3 months before the mods at the time rejected my unban request. :'( And so I remain a religion-hating atheist. :P

Also she has the whole asexual 'sex-negative' thing, which I respect though personally disagree with. But because I mentioned my orgy parties and told a dating story that included some sex scenes and complained about prudes she seemed to have included I was sex crazy when this is hardly the case, while I am 'sex-positive', I really do believe in sex only as part of a loving relationship would truly make me happy. I could easily go without sex as long as I just had a loving partner to cuddle with.

But besides my personal interactions with her, I've read many of her posts and they are most insightful and bring a unique perspective to things, even in cases where I disagree with her.

So my vote goes to Madeleine. :)

Yeah, I'm actually really sorry about that. To be honest, because I didn't see you posting any more after a certain point in that interaction, I assumed you'd been re-banned much earlier than I guess you in fact were. If you'd like to restart that conversation I'd be happy to (although I do admit a certain tendency to get distracted and wander away from conversations, I'll try very hard not to with this one.


I'm sorry for getting the wrong read on you.

Memphis has that binary way of thinking that drives me literally insane, but there's just something about the guy's posts that are compelling.......maybe it's like watching a train wreck.......can't not look, right?

When I understand what Nathan is saying and even when I don't I enjoy reading it.

So I"m going to be a big pussy here and not vote.

I just noticed this thread, and I just learned that I'm "pro-rape" ::) You people are ridiculous.

Memphis gives the irreligious community on here a bad name (Hockeydude, you aren't any better either).

Madeline.

In fairness to memphis, I don't think he can really be called 'pro-rape' by any stretch of the imagination. He's insufficiently anti-rape, but frankly, so are most people. It's not the same thing.


Personally I think HockeyDude is noticeably better, actually.

Memphis

Close to home. ;)

As our President frequently says, Let me be clear. I do not in any way condone either rape or rapists. Suggesting otherwise is an extremely ugly allegation. Anybody who is serious about being "anti-rape" would by definition need to also be anti-religious. The power dynamic of religious authority leads to sexual exploitation more often than many of you are willing to believe. You literally know not what you do when defend the indefensible.

And yet you spend the remainder of this post (not-very-)obliquely making it of me and everybody else in the world who doesn't share your religious beliefs. Charming.

Incidentally, in order for your argument to have any merit, the sort of abuse of power that you're describing would have to be both inherent and (to some extent) specific to religious bodies as a class of institutions. I have no doubt that you do believe that to be the case, and I really can't imagine how you might be disabused of this belief, for the same reason that I don't really know how to argue with Moon landing conspiracy theorists.

With regard to the "pro-rape" comment, as I said, I haven't really read much of what memphis has to say on such topics, I was just going by what people here were saying.

Can someone fill me in on why memphis is so unpopular and why people think he is, at the very least, insufficiently anti-rape and misogynistic?

As a victim of rape myself (although not a woman), that would render him an instant HP in my book and I would understand his unpopularity in polls like these.

Memphis is very obsessed with the plight of men, he's basically an MRA. He for example thinks men are discriminated against and that it is easier for a woman to reach high-paid and powerful positions. He also thinks that sexual harassment is ok and anyone who disagrees just thinks that women are weak.

I don't recall him saying things that are explicitly pro-rape but he's certainly promoting rape culture with his views on sexual integrity. Then again, a frighteningly large share of American men seem to do that.

It's not an MRA thing to believe in another side of discrimination and that there aren't always good consequences to letting one gender represent "gender equality".

To say there is no male discrimination, is dangerously ignorant. It's uncharitable to assume all who acknowledge it and want to do something about are just "patriarch apologists".

To cry and lament only that there are too few women at the top, while forgetting the men lower down by just saying "oh they're men they'll get up...becuz' privilege" is a very dangerous viewpoint.

If he were more polite, applied misandry towards a bigger picture, included trans-men (who notably seem to get less press than trans-women), and didn't seem to blatantly swing the other way of snakes like Valerie Solanas,Catherine McKinnon, and TERFS, I may have voted for him. And he still has more of my vote than opebo, Reaganfan, NY Express, Libertas, CCSF, or Deus Naturae

Maddy for some of the unfortunate red-avvie SJW apologism done and other smaller disagreements had, she's still very insightful, very respectful of other viewpoints, and has more things to say than just one topic.

So yeah, still Maddy.

I think people in particular are thinking of quotes like this. It's from a while ago, so it's possible that memphis's views on this are a lot less bad than they used to be, and I certainly hope that that's the case, but it still rankles.


Again, I don't think it's at all fair to say that this constitutes being 'pro-rape', but it's still a worrying attitude.

Are you suggesting people shouldn't be conscious of risks, sexual or otherwise, when venturing out into the world? I'm just trying to offer some pragmatic advice. The world can be a scary place. It's wise to exercise a reasonable degree of caution. I fail to see how that could be considered remotely offensive, unless one were deliberately trying very hard to be offended. Which I think a lot of posters routinely do.

I think part of the objection is that whether or not a woman gets raped has very little to do with her clothing, so it's not useful advice anyway.

Exactly. The insinuation that this sort of thing is what's relevant is patronizing at best.

Nathan/Madeline.


Though we disagree on an enormous number of issues, I am consistently interested by her posts, she's very articulate, I like the sarcasm, could destroy me in any argument, well-read and has vast knowledge of many subjects.


I don't really know much about Memphis, so I'm just "meh" on him.

It's worth mentioning that it's also incredibly disrespectful to rape victims to use them as pawns in one's unrelated sociopolitical fixations, as memphis does with his antireligious tendencies.

Not nearly as disrespectful of victims as it is of you to pretend that the nature of religious authority doesn't lend itself toward sexual abuse. You are mocking them and belittling the horror of their experiences every day you pretend this is not an issue.

...I just called for a purge of the Catholic clergy something like a week ago. As in I used the word 'purge'. Beyond that, the idea that 'the nature of religious authority' is a thing that exists in the sense of being both consistent across various religions and distinguishable from other types of authority is really weird, and is just a way for you to provide a fig leaf of pseudo-sociological quasi-legitimacy to your wildly arrogant and offensive assertion that the only way to be anti-rape is to share your exact religious beliefs. You're so transparent. Give it up.

Always choose the field over memphis.

I'm sorry you find the truth to be "weird." That's how things operate in the world outside your convent. I did applaud your call for a purge shortly after you made it, but, unfortunately, you then walked the statement back shortly thereafter. Oh, I also find your arguments wildly arrogant and offensive. Your attempted use of absurdly elaborate sentence structure and million dollar words to provide a fig leaf to your vapid, hollow arguments and faint victimization is completely asinine and self-indulgent. You never stand for anything except victimization. You're so transparent. Give it up.

The idea that  religious authority is completely different from all other types of authority is weird. People in positions of authority can and do sometimes abuse that authority, but it is not restricted to religious organizations.

I'm sorry you confuse nonsensical, specious pseudo-sociology with 'truth'. That isn't how things operate in the world outside your subreddit.

I don't want to be 'that girl' and quote Durkheim. So I won't. The basic, foundational assumptions of sociology of religion as a discipline are there if you want to look for them.


If memory serves, what happened was you used it as a jumping-off point to mischaracterize my argument in the most insulting possible terms and I pointed out that that was what you were doing.


You're aware that this is essentially a tone argument you're making, right? Tone arguments and inflammatory assertions repeated ad nauseam seem to be the only kinds of rebuttals to anything I say that you're capable of making. Accusing me of ad hominem attacks for pointing out that you're bigoted insofar as your arguments contain premises that constitute bigotry...accusing me of obscurantism for preferring to write in complex sentences...it never ends.

I don't get your first 3 paragraphs. I don't agree with any of the views you seem to attack. But I also don't think Memphis holds any of these views.