And the Survey SAYS...
A few weeks ago we asked you, the Atlas Shrugged community, to fill out an anonymous online survey. Thousands of you responded and, while we will NEVER divulge any personally identifiable information about any of our members, following are some very interesting meta results.
Gulch, here's who we are...
- - -
Sex
29% Female
71% Male
- - -
Age
6% Under 30
26% 30-49
43% 50-65
23% Over 65
- - -
Marital Status
15% Single
4% Cohabitating
66% Married
10% Divorced
2% Widowed
- - -
Political Affiliation
2% Democrat
18% Independent
23% Libertarian
35% Republican
16% Tea Party
- - -
Voted in the 2012 Presidential Election
93% Voted
3% Did not vote
3% Not registered to Vote
- - -
Gulch, here's who we are...
- - -
Sex
29% Female
71% Male
- - -
Age
6% Under 30
26% 30-49
43% 50-65
23% Over 65
- - -
Marital Status
15% Single
4% Cohabitating
66% Married
10% Divorced
2% Widowed
- - -
Political Affiliation
2% Democrat
18% Independent
23% Libertarian
35% Republican
16% Tea Party
- - -
Voted in the 2012 Presidential Election
93% Voted
3% Did not vote
3% Not registered to Vote
- - -
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
The way to solve this problem is not to deny the vote to a particular sex. It is to uphold property rights, which would make it illegal to vote for theft.
There is not much difference between rational thought ("Rationalism" ? ?) and objective thought (Objectivism).
I am afraid you are letting your religious beliefs get in the way of seeing what I am saying.
I characterize atheism as just another "religion" because there's no more evidence that there is NO god than there is A god. In both cases, people are mistaken (at best) when they say they "know" that god exists or does not exist because when pressed, there is no evidence either way.
The most an intellectually honest person can say about god is, "I don't know."
If *one* group, like the LDS Church Relief Society, can hold a sizable number of women who are internationally recognized as being honorable, charitable, literate, etc, then it is possible for other groups as well.
Now you could get away with the eye roll thing if I tried to say that *only* the LDS Church could produce such a group. But that was not my intention.
While I agree that LDS women are generally better representative of "civilized" women (and this is clearly just opinion), I've also found that on average they tend to be less imaginative and generally less intelligent. They are, to women generally, dray horses compared to wild horses.
Again, my opinion only, but I think anyone (male or female) who dedicates a substantial portion of their life to an unsupportable proposition is a bit of a dullard. I recognize that the Mormon church offers practical advantages that have nothing to do with religion (community support), and thus it may be a rational decision in some cases to sacrifice reason, logic and freedom to avoid penury and depredation. In short, Mormon women are not alone in "selling their souls" to the church to have a better materialistic life.
Again, opinion only, but I believe that someone who would dedicate a good portion of their lives to a fable told by a horse thief about "golden tablets" he "found" (but never showed to anyone) immediately calls their basic intelligence into question.
So there are pluses and minuses to Mormon women.
Even accepting your premise that Mormon women are not the problem, Mormons are scarcely the majority ANYWHERE (except maybe Utah). Just as women here in the Gulch likely did not vote for Obama, so too it's probable that neither did Mormon women. And yet the overwhelming majority of women DID vote for Obama and his promises of socialism.
To the extent that they are more inclined to "brainwash" the flock, it's done to a purpose of cohesion and mutual support. At least it's not programming people to bake Jews in ovens.
Their view of the world generally seems to be more functional/practical than one finds in many religions, and the culture is one of self- and group- sufficiency.
I pointed to the FLDS as an example of that self-sufficiency taken to "gulch" levels. And while I understand that most LDS probably see the FLDS as a problem they wish would just "go away", I personally am inclined to think Leviathan shouldn't mess with them any more than they mess with the LDS.
For the record, I'm agnostic. I think all religions (including atheism which believes in the "no god") are poorly founded because there's no objective test, no repeatable experiment, to demonstrate validity. Whether it's an account from the Old Testament, or a more modern account from a horse thief who claimed to have found some gold tablets, they are all equally insupportable to me.
Is one of the stories correct? Maybe. I tend to think that they are all more likely to be the fabrications of people who outgrow their parents and need new "gods" to take their place.
The LDS Church (which is what I assumed you were talking about when you said "Mormon") has over 14 million members around the world. The totality of all FLDS groups *might* be a couple of thousand folks, total, when all of the various sects and splinter groups are added together.
The LDS Church is expansive and public. It is broadcasting its messages to the world at large and becoming a common site in disaster relief all over the world. The FLDS folks keep to themselves and don't talk to outsiders.
I guess my mistake was that I assumed you would be talking about the "real" LDS Church instead of the tiny minority.
That this group of women, now numbering 6+ million women from all walks of life, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds, is recognized internationally for their goodness, their stalwart support of things which build a better society, etc, says the the problem is not "women."
That misogynistic influences (both male and female) might try to say otherwise has nothing to do with it.
>> it is the LDS women who I was attempting to reference when I said they were not fiscally ignorant.
So, do you honestly believe that LDS women are representative of the entire female population of the United States? That their knowledge of economics and voting patterns in no significant way differ from the rest of the population? If not, then you've only confirmed what I've said about the bias in your sample.
One example of how you might be wrong (not directly related to economics): Abortion. The majority of voting women are pro-abortion. How many LDS women are pro-abortion?
When you mix up the fundamentalists and non-LDS groups with the LDS Church, it shows a lack of understanding of who is who.
The women of the LDS Church were the first women in this continent who had the right to vote. Stories abound of women who voted opposite of their husbands. When the US invaded Deseret, they took away their rights.
BTW, it is the LDS women who I was attempting to reference when I said they were not fiscally ignorant. Many of these fine women do the financial work in the family, taking care of the budget and finances and such. They make it POSSIBLE for the family to get, and keep, their food storage.
The FLDS compound in Texas is NOT the same as the LDS Church (the "real" Mormons). They do not treat their wife in the same way; they do not adhere to the standards the LDS Church demanded back when polygamy WAS acceptable. So comparing the two groups is spurious.
This reminds me of the old man that was suffering from prostrate cancer, a brain tumor, and kidney failure. He spends the entire day in chemo, then dialysis, and finally an MRI.
The doctors release him for the day, and walking to the bus stop he gets dizzy and falls headfirst to the curb. The autopsy declares that he died from blunt trauma to the skull....
You are the forensic doctor focused on the head trauma...and wish to ignore all of the fatal preconditions.
I yield you the battle ground (again), I don't want to see you pound your head on the keyboard on my account! ;-)
Load more comments...