Fred Reed: Keep those women away from our sons!

[Ad Orientem]

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Valentines1.shtml

[moda0306]

I hope this doesn't get me into trouble with the mods, but my God is this guy a douchebag.

[Xan]

He may have a point, though.  The Valentines example is a concrete one, and not dependent on his douchebaggery.  I vividly remember being made to do kindergarten-level smarmy projects in high school.

[stuper1]

He does have a point, although he overplays it quite a bit, but that's how you get hits on your website.

The fact is that boys would be better off if there were more male teachers.

I'm glad my son and daughter are home-schooled, but I wish I could do more of the teaching of my son, instead of my wife.  She does a great job, but how can she be expected to know how a boy thinks.

[moda0306]

He raises some ok points, but women teaching and "obedient" students has been around since a LONG time. It's nothing new.

Oh, and it's not good enough to "raise some good points."  Difficulty teaching a diverse set of learning needs is a known problem and has been around forever.  If you're raising UNIQUE points, or unique solutions to widely-accepted problems, maybe your douchebaggery can be excused.

But he's complaining that "boys will be boys," going on rants about how women are, and how they shouldn't teach "our" sons, and making a complete ass out of himeslf.

If you're going to make an ass out of yourself, at least make your point unique enough to help us ignore your disgustingness as a human being for the 5 minutes it takes to glean some wisdom from an article.  His is just painting bigotry and a conspiracy theory over a complex problem.

The Valentines Day example is a bit of a joke.  Some kids were asked to say nice things about other kids.  It's probably not the most terrible exercise for people to go through once a year... putting aside their own inherant selfishness to actually acknowledge someone else's qualities that they, themselves, might not possess.  Probably better than when teachers were beating children and utterly humiliating ones they didn't like on a regular basis.

[Benko]

I hope this doesn't get me into trouble with the mods, but my God is this guy a douchebag.

heh.

Fred tells things like he sees them and is usually correct.  He is almost a litmus test and well let's just say if you he pisses you off, you are not a conservative.  Someone elsewhere has written about the correlation between "liberals" and the female viewpoint i.e. the liberal brainwashing of America and the femninization of america go hand in hand (or are the same thing).  So this would almost have to piss off anyone not conservative.

lol
i thought i must have read a different article than everybody else at first....

[moda0306]

heh.

Fred tells things like he sees them and is usually correct. 

He is correct in your opinion.  There are a lot of people that say things like they see them without being sexist douchebags.

He is almost a litmus test and well let's just say if you he pisses you off, you are not a conservative.

He really doesn't piss me off, but I think I know what you mean, and I know a lot of good people that are conservative that would be disgusted with his attitude, just as there are good liberals that think Bill Maher is extremely unnecessarily offensive to religious folks.

Though I would say Bill Maher at least centers his show around bringing on various viewpoints, which meets the criteria of my aforementioned point of actually having an interesting, unique perspective to offset being a complete a$$hole.



Plus, this guy talks about totalitarianism, then suggests that we actually split our schools up by sex and dictate more male teachers.  If he were king for a day, this country would be a totalitarian nightmare.  Douchebaggery + hypocrisy + no unique analysis = not really worth listening to or reading.

I'm sure he'd love male competitiveness and disobedience, as long as it was white kids disobeying their liberal English teacher, not black kids disobeying their conservative math teacher.

I mean come on guys... you kind of have to laugh at this.  "Feminization of America" is almost insulting to our own independence and masculinity.  It's the same bs from guys that claim we need to find our personal responsibility and own it, and then complain about largely avoidable phenomenon that are supposedly changing things that these people had no right to try to demand stay the same in the first place .  If America becomes more liberal, maybe it's because individuals are choosing to be based on FACTS, and not indoctrinations, and he has no right to dictate the political opinions of the country in the first place... what a sick control freak. 

This is the guy who forwards an email to you every week trying to prove that Obama's the Antichrist, or "how many square miles of land voted for Romney vs Obama."  His analysis should be looked at as a symptom of a mental disorder... not "a litmus test for whether you're a conservative or not."

[Benko]

I hope this doesn't get me into trouble with the mods, but my God is this guy a douchebag.

He really doesn't piss me off,

Clearly you are having some flavor of strong emotional reaction to him.

A number of leftist media types have called conservative women c&nts (perhaps Mahr was one), wished death on conservatives, etc.  Fred has done none of this. 

You have drunk and assimilated the cool aid to the extent you can't see any other view point (or perhaps even that there is any other valid one). 

Your posts are super important i.e.  for people to study because a lot of the country views things the way you do.  How could they not, these views are factory (college) installed.

[Libertarian666]

I think I could predict with near-100% accuracy several people on this forum who wouldn't like Fred.

[ns2]

Fred drinks a lot padre kino red down there in Mexico. Never tried it but I'm thinking I should give it a go based on Fred's inspirational columns (or "guaranteed reprehensible", as he prefers to say).

I owe Fred for the fact that I'm married to a wonderful woman who is the best thing to ever happen to me. I read his column "The Superiority of Asian Women" and immediately decided to go register on a website called Cherry Blossoms where I met my future wife. If you think he's a sexist who believes Asian women are superior because of their "submissiveness" you should check out the column.

For the record Fred doesn't talk about it much but he's a Vietnam vet who lost an eye in the war.

[moda0306]

Benko,

I see plenty of other viewpoints.  However, I can tell when they're simply racial/sexist anger wrapped in a political rant... and that goes for the ilk of some on the left end of the media.

You seem to have a thing for stating your opinion as it is a fact. I've found that people do this as a mechanism to end one piece of a debate as a premise for deductive logic going forward... so let's get a few things straight...

- It is only your opinion that he's usually correct.

- In your opinion, I've drunk some coolaid and assimilated (and it would appear you're quite sure your opinions are not a result of assimilaton, but careful deductive logic).

- In your analysis, I simply can't see other view points.

- In your opinion, my views are "college-installed."  (I truly assure you, college had almost nothing to do with forming my current crop of opinions.  I was pretty conservative in college as backlash towards certain liberal professors.  I actually had to redo a paper on immigration.  I'll leave you to guess what my assertions were).

None of these were stated as observations, but instead as cold, hard facts.  Especially when it comes to where my opinions come from, it's a bit condescending (especially if patently untrue) to insinuate I'm some kind of liberal-trained lemming who just takes cues from Rachel Maddow and repeats them here.  No offense taken... just a valid tid-bit on how we might want to continue to banter.

So to the degree that any part of this banter is invoking an emotional response in me, it's probably the use of deductive logic on top of ridiculous premises.  It's like trying to build a beautiful home on swamp-land.  I see people on both sides do this and it is a bit annoying.  Krugman does it.  You seem to like doing it.  I might do it and don't realize it... but the use of false premises or just stating things as fact that clearly are debatable is a bit frustrating, only because it unnecessarily bogs down the argument while I try to go back and knock over the premise-pillars that you're building your case on.

[moda0306]

I think I could predict with near-100% accuracy several people on this forum who wouldn't like Fred.

Well since you're such a fan of pure liberty, and Fred would take control of our entire educational system, split it up by gender, and fire half the female teachers for being female, so he can reinforce his viewpoints into the male populace, I'd hope that you're on the list of people who wouldn't like Fred, right along with me .

Abolish government?  I can understand that to some extent.  Take it over and mold it precisely to your liking while calling opponents "totalitarian?"  Not much respect for that.

[ns2]

I think I could predict with near-100% accuracy several people on this forum who wouldn't like Fred.

Well since you're such a fan of pure liberty, and Fred would take control of our entire educational system, split it up by gender, and fire half the female teachers for being female, so he can reinforce his viewpoints into the male populace, I'd hope that you're on the list of people who wouldn't like Fred, right along with me .

Abolish government?  I can understand that to some extent.  Take it over and mold it precisely to your liking while calling opponents "totalitarian?"  Not much respect for that.

Damn. Y'all are a bunch of very smart people and I learn a lot from you but sometimes you take things way too serious. Go have some Padre Kino Red and chill out.

[Libertarian666]

I think I could predict with near-100% accuracy several people on this forum who wouldn't like Fred.

Well since you're such a fan of pure liberty, and Fred would take control of our entire educational system, split it up by gender, and fire half the female teachers for being female, so he can reinforce his viewpoints into the male populace, I'd hope that you're on the list of people who wouldn't like Fred, right along with me .

Abolish government?  I can understand that to some extent.  Take it over and mold it precisely to your liking while calling opponents "totalitarian?"  Not much respect for that.

As far as I'm concerned, the educational system should be abolished along with the rest of the government.

That said, I've now read the article, and agree with it as far as his analysis of the current system goes; he has the facts on his side. I didn't see anything about his taking over the educational system, though; perhaps you could enlighten me?

[Libertarian666]

racist, sexist?  really? and that isn't a MSNBC #1 go to position on every conservative utterance?? 

Fred is a conservative curmudgeon, and his writing should be read as such. It is written as curmudgeon humor to make a point (most valid some exaggerated for effect) not some right wing totalitarian conspiracy piece to dominate the lives of pantywaist liberals by taking over education. 

the over reaction and venom reading it has caused here is making me giggle, i can't believe this type of writing is so poorly understood or comprehended...

You're obviously new here then. 

[Pointedstick]

the over reaction, and venom reading it has caused here, is making me giggle,  i can't believe this type of writing is so poorly understood or comprehended...

I've observed before that liberals and conservatives simply prefer different kinds of humor and entertainment.

Conservatives tend to like entertainment that is either cloyingly moralistic and simplistic (think Walker Texas Ranger or Touched by an Angel) or, on the other end of the spectrum, totally over-the-top offensive tell-it-like-it-is ranting, like Fred Reed.

Liberals prefer smug, pointed snark and often don't get that Fred and Limbaugh and O'Reilly are simply giving their audience what they want, same as Jon Stewart. It's also why bombastic blowhard liberals like Keith Olbermann don't generally succeed. Liberals don't like over-the-top blowhards the way conservatives do.

[Xan]

As far as I'm concerned, the educational system should be abolished along with the rest of the government.

I don't know about abolishing government, but the established system of government education should absolutely be dumped yesterday.

That said, I've now read the article, and agree with it as far as his analysis of the current system goes; he has the facts on his side. I didn't see anything about his taking over the educational system, though; perhaps you could enlighten me?

Quite right; he's just saying "here's the way things should be", not that he's advocating any particular method to get there.

[ns2]

Fred is a conservative curmudgeon, and his writing should be read as such. It is written as curmudgeon humor to make a point (most valid some exaggerated for effect)

Fred would disavow being a conservative. I think I've read every column he's ever written since he has been on the internet so trust me. I think he is even somewhat in sympathy to the idea of universal healthcare although I'm sure he'll have plenty to say about the Obama Cluster****.

i have only read a couple dozen of his articles and they were on a wide range of topics many of which cant be "politically" classified, of those that were political he probably qualify as conservative in the broad sense, but i would understand completely not wanting to be called such... i would reject the label myself based on the common media definition and more than a few of the ideas being lumped under it by people who call themselves conservative....

[MediumTex]

The only other thing I have read by him was his piece about the Zimmerman case (http://www.fredoneverything.net/Zim.shtml), which I thought was right on.

The problem with some of these guys is that they feel compelled to have an opinion on everything.  It's hard to be clever and insightful all of the time about everything, but that's what you need to build and maintain an audience.

After a while, doing a gig like Rush or Hannity do would just become incredibly tiring (even if I agreed with their general worldviews, which I don't) because at some point it just turns into entertainment, and whatever convictions they may have had to start with must have long ago been ground up into the ability to just go out there and generate a storyline or controversy about something every single day.  That's hard to do.

And if it ever came time to step outside your previous beliefs because your own understanding had evolved...well, you shouldn't do that if you want to keep your audience (and your job).

[ns2]

The only other thing I have read by him was his piece about the Zimmerman case (http://www.fredoneverything.net/Zim.shtml), which I thought was right on.

The problem with some of these guys is that they feel compelled to have an opinion on everything.  It's hard to be clever and insightful all of the time about everything, but that's what you need to build and maintain an audience.

After a while, doing a gig like Rush or Hannity do would just become incredibly tiring

MT, Fred Reed is just an expatriate living in down in Mexico writing his columns with the help of Padre Kino Red. Don't confuse him with Rush and Hannity.

[D1984]

I do agree with Mr Reed that we are overmedicating kids (mostly but not only boys) with psychoactive drugs rather than just letting them be kids but with that said I also have two huge concern I have with what he wrote:

One, feel-good nonsense like making valentines is inappropriate for any grade, much less the high school level...why he seems to think that women teachers (or at least some/many/most of them) would want it is a mystery to me. Certainly none of the female teachers I ever had in high school (which I graduated in 2002 so this wasn't like something that happened fifty years ago) cared more about neatness and diligence rather than actually knowing the material....and never in a million years would they have given us such a pathetic and irrelevant assignment (and that's not even getting into the fact that forcing students to make cards/valentines that say something nice about someone else even if they hate the person--instead of said teachers just insisting that all students treat others kindly and if they don't have something nice to say then don't say anything at all--is pretty Orwellian. Note that the courts have held that (on grounds of freedom of conscience) students CANNOT be forced to say a pledge to a flag and a country they despise (or that they feel it is against their belief system to do so) or a prayer to a deity they clearly don't believe in...so why should it be legal to force them to say or write (doubtless insincere) kind words to people they don't even like?

Two, that after (to some extent correctly) asserting that there are enough differences in boys and girls that perhaps a different learning environment might be appropriate for each (i.e. he clearly does NOT believe that "boys and girls are identical" ) he then utterly fails to apply this at an even more finely granular level; to wit, he seems to believe (at least based on this article) that "boys are identical" and "girls are identical" without considering that "boy" and "girl" are hugely broad categories and that they are made up of INDIVIDUALS who are distinctly NOT identical.

The issue this creates is obvious. Fred seems to think that all boys, merely because they are male, like and are amenable to (and this is in his own words):

"Rough housing"

"Wrestling and dodgeball"

"Hours on end of pick up basketball and other competitive sports"

"Intensely competitive"

Where does this leave the shy, quiet, melancholic introvert who has little or no athletic ability or aptitude for "traditionally male" pursuits like competitive physical sports? Or what about the soft, sensitive, artsy types? What of the intensely competitive tomboy girl who would be bored to tears in a "cooperative group game led by a caring adult"? Putting any one of these into a learning enviroment like Mr. Reed described as being "appropriate" for their gender (in his opinion) would basically be like mixing oil and water and would probably result in bullying of them simply for not conforming with what other school kids their ages were like.

If you absolutely HAVE to resegregate the schools (a debatable idea at best), don't do it merely by gender; do it by temperament and aptitude. Just because someone is born with a male body does not mean that a traditionally "rough, competitive" environment would be the best thing for them. One man's meat is another man's poison, and any institution of learning that cared about INDIVIDUALS and not about treating half the student population as if they were all the same (merely by virtue of being boys) would do well to respect that rather than trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole.

[ns2]

Where does this leave the shy, quiet, melancholic introvert who has little or no athletic ability or aptitude for "traditionally male" pursuits like competitive physical sports?

Planet earth.

Deal with it. You have no choice.

[Benko]

Moda,

1.  it is opinion e.g. how much/to what extent "the state" running variuos aspects of society is a good idea. 

It is  fact that society has been transformed (from what it was).  Evaluations (good or bad) of the transformation don't invalidate the fact of it happening.

2. I stand corrected to whatever extent I have lumped you into a category which you only partially belong.  However your visceral reaction "douchebag" means you fall into the "not conservative" cateogry.  I have used this term to avoid the mental mas***ation of people of the left who don't like being called such (or statist, etc etc). 

3. 

Fred is a conservative curmudgeon, and his writing should be read as such. It is written as curmudgeon humor to make a point (most valid some exaggerated for effect) not some right wing totalitarian conspiracy piece to dominate the lives of pantywaist liberals by taking over education. 

[D1984]

Where does this leave the shy, quiet, melancholic introvert who has little or no athletic ability or aptitude for "traditionally male" pursuits like competitive physical sports?

Planet earth.

Deal with it. You have no choice.

I'm not sure I get what you are saying. We all live on planet Earth.

The point I was getting at was why assume someone (or rather, every single one of the "someones" in a group of individuals) has certain innate characteristsics just because they are male (or female...or for that matter, because they are are tall, short, black, white, etc) and then design an educational system that tries to force them (just because of what's in their chromosomes and what's between their legs) to be something that is not in line with their natural tendencies or temperament. Why not let people choose the kind of school they wish to attend based on who they are and not what they are. Is that such a difficult idea to comprehend?

[MediumTex]

The only other thing I have read by him was his piece about the Zimmerman case (http://www.fredoneverything.net/Zim.shtml), which I thought was right on.

The problem with some of these guys is that they feel compelled to have an opinion on everything.  It's hard to be clever and insightful all of the time about everything, but that's what you need to build and maintain an audience.

After a while, doing a gig like Rush or Hannity do would just become incredibly tiring

MT, Fred Reed is just an expatriate living in down in Mexico writing his columns with the help of Padre Kino Red. Don't confuse him with Rush and Hannity.

Sorry, I didn't mean to do that.  I was just reviewing his list of pieces and it got me to thinking about how lots of commentators get into a rut of always having to have something to say, whether or not they actually have anything to say.

In reviewing his past pieces that I enjoyed, it sort of made me think that the piece referred to in the OP might have been one of those "I need to write something curmudgeon-ly and I can't think of anything right now" kind of things.