User:Hentropy

Friendly radical feminist, political moderate, and Buddhist. Hentropy (talk) 21:59, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

But Aren't Radical Feminists the Bad Kind?

I scare myself sometimes, it's true. Being "radical" means to me that I don't believe that true equality of the sexes can occur without some more fundamental changes in patriarchal society. "Patriarchal society" simply means a society which includes religion, economic systems, and general social systems that have historically made women unequal. While passing new laws and winning court cases can help correct egregious injustices, more things need to be questioned and changed about our basic belief structures to truly attain equality.

Before you go off thinking I'm totally like, chillax, you should also I know I don't believe you should be raising your own children and generally dislike marriage (though I do believe in marriage equality, for as long as it is around). As society we have not only treated children like they are the property of their progenitors, but we have also tied women to the job of taking care of them regardless of their ability or interest. This not only means patriarchal ideas get perpetuated, but also that women will be perpetually handicapped when it comes to achieving true equality.

Obviously I know some of these are unpopular opinions, but as much as I'd like to I can't take credit or say this is a new idea, as it is actually one of the older radical feminist ideas, and it's actually been put into practice by Kibbutzim. I don't totally agree with everything Kibbutzim do, but I do at least agree with the collective child-rearing part and its role in freeing women.

But You're a... Centrist?

Left-Right ideologies are always difficult to talk about in a general sense because it depends on perspective. From a muddy "international" perspective I could be called a centrist- from a purely American perspective (which is important as I do happen to live there), I'd certainly be called left-wing on most issues. I tend to be quite liberal from a purely social point of view. On economics I do strongly believe in social welfare and a basic universal income, however I also don't believe the government is really all that better than the markets in many industries, especially not in America where the government has largely proven itself to be incompetent and inefficient at best in handling big responsibilities.

When it comes to foreign policy, I don't believe in preemptive intervention or forced regime change. I think the US could play a helpful role in the world in terms of spreading liberal, anti-authoritarian, and secular values. I also admit that it has done a poor job of doing this with the business end of a guided missile. At the same time, we can't expected to be isolationist and influential and generous country all at the same time. If we retreat from the stage, we have to accept the reality that countries will be brutal to their own people, and that necessity might force us to do business with these countries. We will also have to accept an increasingly nationalist Russia brutalizing and asserting itself wherever it pleases, which doesn't seem to bother the Greenwalds or Snowdens of the world in the slightest.

Oh, and I also kinda like guns. While I'm not a gun nut who wants to turn everything into the wild west, I do generally support gun rights and believe that most gun control proposals do not or will not work on a practical level, only working to piss off gun owners more and driving support for Republicans. I do believe there is a serious issue with gun violence in the US, and the problem must be looked at and addressed holistically, which includes improving security at soft targets, expanded mental health checks and background checks for those that want to buy guns. As unsavory as it might be, I do not believe the media should greatly cover mass shooting incidents and the like- the media exposure of sense of power over people that spree shooters feel is a large part of why they do what they do. There is no doubt in my mind that part of the reason for a spike in mass shootings is because the media obsessively covers it and attempts to make anti-folk heroes out of them.

But more than anything, I'm an ever-skeptical cynic. There is nothing more scary to me than a politician who portrays himself to be a messianic panacea to the country's problems. Realistically, most things do not fall within the power of the President. I do not believe the President was ever meant to be the position they are now, and that more power should be vested in Congress, and "revolutionary" change should be directed there more than anywhere.