My Americana. Politics is the place for woman.

[shkrobius]

The story of woman's suffrage in ten words: Disenfranchized women have organized and undone the centuries of injustice. They've got their right to vote! Amen.

But there is a bit more to this story. Having the right to vote and voting are not the same thing. The suffragettes not only wanted the right to vote, they wanted to vote. Something was

Comments

[chaource]

I would support the right to divorce and also prohibition. (Myself, I refuse to drink any alcohol, and I married a divorcee.) The problem of a democratic government is the stupidity of the electorate, not the souffrage rights per se.

[shkrobius]

Good for you, but I would not be able to control the gag reflex.

[chaource]

It is okay if the thought of reinstalling prohibition makes you gag. That's democracy; you vote and I vote. Let us assume that both of us are in favor of democracy as such. From this point of view, we have to admit that the electorate is entitled to voting on all questions and to defend arbitrary views. So we cannot say that women's suffrage is bad just because the women who fought for suffrage were going to advocate prohibition. It does not matter which views they were going to advocate; the main thing is, they had some views.

I am not in favor of extending the suffrage to children or to animals because in my opinion no one should have any rights if they also don't assume the relevant responsibilities.

[shkrobius]

So what is your position on the democratic movements that seek to suppress liberties once these movements win the elections? These "disenfranchized women" wanted to be enfranchized for nothing else than disenfranchizement of the immigrants, establishing the Jim Crow, abusing the rights of the drinking males, suppression of the freedom of the press, exclusive control of education, etc. Democracy is a wonderful thing, but it has its own pathologies. Prohibition movement emerged as a proto-Nazi movement parading these suffragettes wth the same intent the Nazi were parading SA troopers in the 1920s. That they did not seize the political power is only due to the stronger party politics in the US: the prohibitionists were assimilated by the major parties faster than they coalesced into the third party, but in the early 1900s it was not decided. It could've been a very different outcome

[melvin_udall]

I was referred to this by a third party. Fascinating stuff.

Thank you for sharing this.