Lexi I am afraid Joe is able to hold any view he wants to.
Yes a bit breathless at his seeming changed views over the past few months.
I once thought of him as a moderate, but having supported Piorot, hard even when she is against me not to, Joe too must be free to say as he wishes.
Individual, I find it hard to communicate with you.
But as you see, break my promise and try again.
Our minds eye paints a picture of those we talk to here, more wrong in reality than right [that may be a theme for a thread?]
You have me baffled.
You tell me you age is about mine, by your harking back to the 1970s, the time Labor destroyed your life.
You too see an out of work and control youth I do not.
And want a chain gang like National service to fix a problem we do not have.
Say75 years old? living on your own? nick name grumpy? how am I going?
Culture? been to Tamworth for country music week.
Maybe Bondi beach just to say you swam there.
Screamed with joy at a footy final, or as warny took his fifth wicket.
Watched the place stop for the Melbourne cup, sat with the Balmy army just to enjoy the slandering one another.
Heard about fair go mate? tell you what, rather be a road kill wombat than any thing else.

You're absolutely right, Belly, that anyone can say what they like (including Lexi).

However, none of us are obliged to respond to inflammatory and bellicose rhetoric if it so pleases us not to....and if we do respond, we should reserve the right to call the poster out on his or her aggressive misrepresentation.

Sorry, Lexi, Loudmouth by name, Loudmouth by nature, I suppose.

It's just that I sort of expected, and dreaded, somebody who posed as coming from the Left making a back-handed defense of FGM (the Yanks probably oppose it, after all), by comparing it with male circumcision, as if they were at all comparable.

Has male circumcision ever crippled anybody ? Does it really have any effect on sensation - if so, then some of you blokes out there must be walking sex maniacs.

And as for stopping masturbation, how did that go ? Come to think of it, my eyesight IS getting worse these days.

Let's try to stick to the issues, instead of using these tactics of (a) diverting away from the issues, on the one hand, and when that doesn't work, (b) playing this childish game of "Well, you did too .. you're just as bad .... nyah, nyah .... anyway my daddy'll put you in jail ..."

What are the issues ?

What are the problems with FGM, apart from lack of consent issues ? It can physically cripple, and it is explicitly intended to lessen or remove any female sexual pleasure, i.e. it is a means of control - surely there is little argument about that.

This may be understandable in backward societies, property-based peasant and pastoralist societies in which young women have to be watched, guarded, walled up, until they can be passed from one man, the father, to another, the husband, as a chattel, as part of the political and property arrangements between two families, so that she can be the receptacle, the vessel, in which the boys of the next generation can be grown. Then she can be put aside, into the kitchen, nursery and backyard.

I'm not sure what the US has to do with all that, but I'm sure some imaginative faux-Left person can squeeze it in somehow, as evil incarnate, and central to the FGM debate, oppressive of all non-Western cultures, etc., Pilger-like.

Cheers,

Loudmoth

Belly,
No matter how hard you try to make me look wrong & your assertion of me your last post is about as wrong as you could possibly get even with help from others.
Is it the fact that I actually care what's happening to Australia at the hands of you beloved party that gets you so stirred up ?
Give me one ounce of proof that I'm not saying anything other than wanting Australia recover from all the stupid things happening now.
I care about this country, do you ?

Lexi,

Loudmouth appears to be banging on about the US in relation to this topic and this thread...seemingly in connection with my original comment.

As in:

"I'm not sure what the US has to do with it, but I'm sure some imaginative faux-Left person can squeeze it in somehow, as evil incarnate, and central to the FGM debate, oppressive non-Western cultures, etc...."

I made no reference to the US.

It seems that the "US" in this particular discussion is central to the construction of his specialty - "the strawman".

Fascinating to to watch it in action...."strawman 101"

: )

Hi Poirot,

I thought you had retired from the discussion - welcome back :)

But on your last point, it must respectfully be pointed out that it's not always all about you.

The issue is about FGM, and by extension, how its supporters can be persuaded to abandon the practice - and in the process, value women equally with men. I'm confident that you would recognise that as an important and urgent goal in a just society.

Male circumcision is a red herring in that crucial discussion, and a pretty small one at that.

Cheers,

Joe
:)