Kent State/ Women's Suffrage Comments

I've mostly been on vacation in August (trying to live like the Europeans, don't 'cha know) so my posts have been sparse, as have my responses to (comments about) them have been. And visiting other blogs just hasn't been happening. I'm about to leave one more time--to visit my folks, who are at their summer home on Maple Lake in Ontario, Canada. I'll be gone until a day or two after Labour Day and then I can get back to the business (and pleasure) of blogging.
The post Four Dead
In Ohio., has elicited a couple of the most touching comments ever left on my blog.
There have been a few moments, especially when fellow bloggers are giving up the ghost or when I'm feeling really uninspired or just badly short on time, that I've wondered if burning the midnight oil pouring my thoughts out into the blogosphere is "worth it."

Without question, the following reminds why me it most certainly is.

Comments:

I think you have a wonderful site. I am a national guard member who has recently been to Afghanistan and Iraq (one year each). I think we all get a bad rap for what happened so many years ago. I am now a student at Kent State. I feel terrible for that tragedy that happened on May 4th, it was long before i was born. Just know, that the national guard is different now. Better trained and better equipped, and with more combat experience. But all in all, thank you for your site, and God bless America. (Aaron Parker)

The post on the Kent State Massacre is quite harsh in it's assessment of the National Guard. The song by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young "Four Dead In Ohio." is even more critical.
By all accounts, May 4, 1970, was a terribly confusing day, an awful tragedy for those killed and their loved ones, and for the Guard, who'd been put into a situation that they couldn't have anticipated would turn out the way it did.

I don't think the National Guard is solely to blame. I believe the Nixon Administration rightly deserves the mantle of responsibility placed upon it for encouraging the atmosphere that was conducive to the fear and confusion that reined that fateful day.

Mr. Parker:
Thank you for your service on behalf of this country. I am very glad that you came home safely and I wish you much success as a student at Kent State University, as well as in your career upon graduation.

And in response to my Aug 26, 2004 post Nineteenth Amendment Guarantees Women's Suffrage...

Comments:

And ever since women got the right to vote, the country's been shifting further and further away from your libertarian ideals. The one thought-provoking thing I've heard Ann Coulter say is that she'd gladly surrender her right to vote if all other women would too. (Her Brother)

Bro:
After reading your comment, at first I thought that you were kidding, but since I know you I know you are serious and frankly, knowing that is quite disheartening.

I'm sure you realize that a lot has happened since women secured the right to vote.
One of the thoughts that came to mind as I pondered your statements was, if you exchanged the word blacks for women how much more ludicrous Anne Coulter's statement is. There is absolutely no evidence that I've seen that indicates that there is a causational relationship between women voting and the shift away from "libertarian ideals" in this country.

IMO, there are many events in the 75 years since we gained suffrage, that might help explain it and most of them are economic and class-related and anyone who doesn't live in a cave knows that men--by far--still hold the strongest economic sway in this country.

When women were allowed the right to vote there was no such thing as the "American middle class." At the culmination of WWII, the G.I. Bill bestowed economic freedoms on servicemen and their families that effectively led to its creation. Could this chain of events have effected the loss of libertarian ideals?

There may in fact be a correlation between the time frame of women voting and the demise of Libertarianism, but I see no earthly way that one can put on blinders to all the other influences on our class structure, economics, and government, that may have hastened the fading of libertarian ideals.

--Sis

Comments

[Her Brother]

Well, yeah--it would be ludicrous for Ann Coulter to say that, given that she's as white as they come. (Still, sounding ludicrous has never stopped her before....)

Do I really need to present evidence that women are more socialist than men? or that soccer moms are a valued voting bloc? Yes, our society as a whole has become more socialist over the past century--e.g. men voted to allow women the right to vote. But how would laws have evolved if women had *not* had that right? All I'm saying is, it's thought-provoking.

I'm going back into my cave now.