Women Are Weak?

Gifted with a face too ugly for television and a voice too annoying for radio, Jason has dedicated his life to exposing truth using written word and a healthy dose of sarcasm. He studied political science at Widener University and has worked in the political field, including various campaigns for the past 5 years.

• TheMarque

  The girl in the picture looks extra weak.

• http://profiles.google.com/vogelz Andrew Vogel

  I’m not really getting this. Taking assistance does not necessarily imply “weakness”.  Getting help from others implies that people are helping others out when they need help.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  

  I do wonder what the alternate story would look like without any government assistance along the way.  If we believe a head start pre-school program is effective, then “Julia” is getting assistance before she is even cognizant to choose it.

  • http://www.doubleinfinity.org Mark Walz, Jr

    I don’t think it’s necessarily the “taking assistance” that the author is stating is implying weakness, but the fact that Obama’s campaign is essentially saying, “Where would this woman be without our help?” That type of thing. The campaign itself seems to suggest the woman couldn’t have done all of those things or succeeded in life without the help of the Government or the Obama administration.

  • http://twitter.com/therealworrell Jason Worrell

    I’m not saying she’s weak for taking assistance from the government. I’m saying Barack Obama thinks she’s weak and needs help from the government at every stage in her life. We shouldn’t be saying people are weak for using the resources given to them, I’m saying we should be demanding that the government let us achieve things on our own. We as Americans cannot know our true potential unless the government stops making itself a constant crutch for us to lean on. 

    The alternate story is one of 2 things. The first possibility is that Julia doesn’t exist, because Barack Obama’s federal funding for Planned Parenthood has strengthened the organization and given it the power to convince Julia’s mother that she needs to abort her child. The other possibility is that Julia leads exactly the same life. Nothing really changes except she pays lower taxes and America actually survives the next 4 years under a President that isn’t hell bent on destroying us financially. It’s a pretty good story, and hopefully we will have the resources to put together a stick figure slide show like the Obama campaign.

    • Blaise Mar

      She’s going to pay lower taxes because Romney, if elected, will cut federal education programs such as the ones mentioned in the story. Programs such as these don’t necessarily make things easier, but they make things more comfortable. Having enough teachers, having up to date textbooks and equipment so that students aren’t packed into classrooms where the teacher is barely heard and the learning material is beaten and battered. Lower taxes are great for an established individual, but as new generations are born into this world, I would like them to have a greater opportunity to succeed.

  • TheMarque

    Replied to this long ago but didn’t post for some reason: 
    I don’t think it’s necessarily the “taking assistance” that the author is stating is implying weakness, but the fact that Obama’s campaign is essentially saying, “Where would this woman be without our help?” That type of thing. The campaign itself seems to suggest the woman couldn’t have done all of those things or succeeded in life without the help of the Government or the Obama administration.

• http://www.facebook.com/joshmkinney Josh Kinney

  I like Andrew’s idea, let’s find someone who wants to write the alternative story as well!  This is the global ‘conversation’ after all, and there are always different sides to a conversation 

  • TheMarque

    That’s right, this site is NOT about one sided arguments or American disagreements. It is a Global Conversation!

• Ryan Byrne

  Firstly, I would like to thank you for bringing this to my intention. I decided to read through The Life of Julia slides. I would like to offer some constructive criticism of your standpoint. Also, don’t take any of this personally because I like you Jason haha.

  There’s no substance to your argument. Perhaps I feel this way because I’m not nationalistic. You seem to feel that this issue is common sense; after all, relying on government “is simply not American.” But, what is common sense really? I’ll advance that “common sense” is an illusion. Common sense is constructed out of the socialization process – a process deeply rooted in our national identities. Therefore, it can be profoundly misleading. The deep-seated values that compose “common sense,” e.g. as in your case, individualism, can be mobilized for political gain by creating binaries or oppositions – American vs. Non-American, Capitalists vs. Socialists, Religious vs. Secularists, etc. These oppositions can become buttons that powerful figures can use to open the door to the masses. Mitt Romney does it. Barack Obama does it. George Bush did it. And so did Bill Clinton. It’s a nonpartisan occurrence. And on and on the list of presidential figures goes. The word “American” becomes tyrannical in all these cases; It controls us and discourages us from addressing real issues. We need to be constantly reflecting on this if we are to be involved in politics, media, or society at large. 

  You’re “American” seems individualistic. Perhaps you disagree with me. Though you can’t blame me for thinking that when you say, “… pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps and making it on our own.” I think this is a recent phenomenon – one that came with the rise of neoliberal economics and it’s cultural counterpart, postmodernism. I don’t know if individualism is economically sustainable, as it has crisis tendencies. I think your “American” has encouraged the growth many good “freedoms,” such as freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of assemblage, etc. However, this individualistic “freedom” often turns into nothing but mere advocacy for free enterprise and corporate power. I won’t get into this, as you don’t get into economics either, though it would be a fun conversation. 

  Who has the monopoly on “American” or “freedom?” Why is regulation or social assistance denounced as unfreedom? It doesn’t make sense to me unless we take individualism as a God-given proposition and indeed, it is not (that’s also a fun theological discussion for later!).  

  I want to hear why this is bad, rather than hearing nothing but ideological rhetoric. I’ll still disagree with you, but I’ll appreciate your argument much more. Could I challenge you to write an article on that? 

  Nevertheless, women have historically been underappreciated in this country, especially among socially conservative groups where gender relations has often been legitimated by dogmatic religion. I may disagree with the views of Sarah Palin, but I think she opened some ideological doors for women (and perhaps even more so for men). And I very much disagree with you, but I’m happy to see conservative voices, especially those of men, standing up for gender equality, at least on an epistemological level. I don’t think you’re going to get anywhere without addressing inequality in social, cultural, and economic capital too, but I wish you the best of luck nonetheless!

  • http://twitter.com/therealworrell Jason Worrell

    I would never take the exchanging of ideas personally, after all the exchanging of ideas is the essence of America. It is the root of freedom, and what this country was built on. 

    I do not believe that my argument of relying on government assistance is not American is common sense. If it were we would not be facing some of the problems that we are today. However, I don’t think that it makes my argument any less true.

    I base my understanding of what is American based on the principles we were founded on, the Constitution which I have examined very closely, and our nation’s rich history. A test of an issue using these 3 things to determine if something would fit into what is American I feel like is both fair and wise. To determine if living on complete reliance on the government (I should say with no true reason to, as in Comrade Julie’s case) is American let’s apply my test.

    In 1776, fed up with the tyranny that they have faced under King George, the American people decide to declare their independence. They pen up their idea for a government and call it The Articles of Confederation. This is a government of 13 completely individual states with a central government that has almost no power whatsoever (you can see that already they knew that big government was not the direction they wanted to go). This government did not work, and the founders realized that a central government was needed after all. However, they were absolutely concerned about the central government having too much power. They decided to list specific powers that the central government had, and split them between 3 branches so there would be check and balances to make sure the government didn’t become too strong. As you can see, all the way they were concerned about a large government. Since the governments presence in every aspect of your life would be big government, i think it’s safe to say my test would say it is not American.

    Let’s move on. The rules for the government that they wrote was called the Constitution of the United States. In this document, which has governed our country for over 200 years now they gave the federal government specific powers. These powers were the power to print money, declare war, establish an army, regulate commerce between states along with international commerce, negotiate treaties between foreign nations, establish post offices, and make laws necessary to enforce the constitution. That is it. Where in there do you see provide for every need of the citizen? Where do you see make sure they all have health care? No, the federal government’s job was to protect us with it’s army, to help us in trading commerce, and to get the hell out of the way after that, oh and while delivering our mail (which they do a brilliant job of). Considering government providing everything for us goes right against the constitution I would have to say that it’s not American by this part of the test either. 

    Next let us look at the history of this country. There’s the Revolution, where we hated that we were paying too much in taxes and didn’t have a say in it so we picked up guns and killed over it (which I do agree we should have done). We wrote the constitution and lived by it until the Civil War, when half our country already thought the government had too much power so they seceded (take note that the government having too much power and control in our lives pretty much defined American history and recognize this as a theme). The south loses and the republicans at the time, with good intentions but bad judgement, give the federal government a tremendous amount of power through the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. Their intentions are to make sure the rights of former slaves in the south are protected, something that is of extreme importance and needed to be dealt with. However, they did not foresee how this amendment would be misused by the American people. The government slowly gains power in areas that the constitution never intended it to have power over, being backdoored all the way through the 14th amendment. We jump ahead to the Great Depression. With the country feeling economic pain and looking for any solution FDR suggests his “New Deal” plan. This, if allowed to pass, will go on to create the welfare state that we live in today. However, the deal is not allowed to pass. One of the checks and balances designed to save us from this very thing kicks in when the Supreme Court declares the law to be unconstitutional by a vote of 5-4. Freedom prevails…or does it. In a power grab, and in true dictator fashion, FDR threatens to increase the number of Justices on the Supreme Court and pack the court full of liberal judges so his “New Deal” will go through. After slight adjustment to the law that do no real change to it, the bill is passed through both houses signed by the President and re-argued in the court. One justice caves to the threat of FDR and government reliance is born, starting with Social Security. The government grows to tremendous size and we have the situation we are in now. Since history seems to suggest that big government has done nothing but slowly destroy our country, I;m gonna have to say this suggests it’s not American, after all it is destroying America.

    There’s my thought process. Based on nothing but knowledge and understanding of the principles that have kept us alive and prosperous to this point

    • http://twitter.com/therealworrell Jason Worrell

      Also this section of blogs is meant to be opinion based. I wasn’t writing a news story I was alerting America to something I saw as a problem, and trying to draw attention and win favor to my cause

    • BDC

      Good response Jason.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bob-Kenny/148001314 Bob Kenny

    I don’t mean to be rude, but if you want people to take you seriously, you should probably learn how to spell…  When you use words incorrectly, like “thank you for bringing this to my intention,” (the word I think you were looking for was “attention”) and using “you’re” incorrectly, it makes you seem very uneducated and undermines everything you say…

• http://twitter.com/SoftwareWorlds SoftwareWorld

  women are strong. they form a great part of our customers as well.

• Blaise Mar

  You’re taking a fictitious story and somehow turning it into a campaign on how Obama doesn’t believe women can succeed without him. Many of the programs mentioned in the “Life of Julia” benefit men, just as they do women. The reason he is using a woman is because like it or not, women are still not always treated as equals and this little story is a nice way of showing that equality for women is something Obama believes in and has voiced his opinion on. Whether it’s a ploy to gain more votes or genuine concern for the state of women, it’s helping them. I don’t see how education programs and PPACA make anyone weak. And also, the only thing Romney has to offer are “binders full of women.”