The Obamacare Ruling and Associated Hysteria

Many are upset about the Obamacare supreme court ruling, claiming that it paves the way for the government to force any type of purchase on its citizenry. The manosphere is no less shrill in its dire warnings. WF Price believes that it sets the stage for various future anti-male laws, such as a mandated extension of child support to age 26, or even a Rome-style bachelor tax. Are such concerns valid, or overblown?

Clearly, the purchase mandate is shaky from a legal perspective. I'm not sure I agree with Roberts' idea that it constitutes a "tax," either. In the case of healthcare, though, there really is no other way to spread out costs and keep them under control. Would you rather instead risk losing your house and life savings when you get sick?

It really depends on what your priorities are. If you're fine with a shaky system that allows insurers to jump out and leave you with a huge bill the moment you get sick, then, I suppose something like Obamacare is a bad idea. If, however, you want some semblance of normalcy and predictability in your health care costs (and health care period), then Obamacare is a good thing.

This "bloated bill," as WF Price puts it, has many good things in it. Things that honestly should have been implemented decades ago. Yes, there are (minor) aspects of it that grate on my manosphere sensibilities, such as the requirement to charge men and women exactly the same (women cosume more in health care costs.) But people with cancer cost more than the average person, and if we're going to flat-line costs for them, then we might as well do the same for women.

The requirement to cover kids up to age 26 helps young men who are struggling to find a job immensely.  The manosphere comments on this particualr aspect are extremely exapserating, but revealing, and warrant a dedicated post.

See Also
Health Care, the Lack thereof, and how it Impacts Young Men

"Guys only want one thing"

How often have you heard this line from women? Aside from the fact that it's a smear, and arguably dehumanizes men, it fails to recognize reality. Imagine you were surrounded by a bunch of very hungry people. Would you exclaim in exasperation, "all they want is food!" Of course not.

One of the problems with today's society is that women have zero concept of male sexual needs. If men aren't sexually satisfied enough, you'll start seeing widespread sexually desperate behavior. Women fail to see how they contribute to this problem via hypergamy and other self-imposed barriers. Apparently, most guys (variably the bottom 50-80%) should just shut up and keep their dick in their pants. Problem is, it doesn't work that way. Guys can't just "shut it off." And so you're going to see more yearning and desperation from those men.

This is one of the reasons why the whole "nice guys suck" narrative from women is so cruel. They fail to see how they created this problem of sexual desperation among men. The average guy no longer gets married at 18-22; that system was scrapped, for better or worse. In its place is a sexual "free market" that disproportionatly rewards naturally skilled and attractive men, and leaves most others stewing in varying levels of desperation.

Women who complain about men coming on to them should realize that they can't have it both ways. They can't have sexual freedom into their early 30s or beyond and then just expect most men to be tame and docile, and not come on to them (or employ less aggressive ways of coming on to them like the "nice guy" stuff). Want men to leave you alone? Then make sure they have somewhere to put it!

The demands of the modern female are just totally unreasonable.

Today's Young Men Face an Uphill Battle

A recent Mangan's post on declining birthrates listed all the usual suspects, but one comment in particular caught my eye:

Subtle little things like seat belt laws make it difficult to have a large number of kids and be able to transport them around. Not to mention costs of food, clothing, health care, education and so on. Our society is designed for a low number of children per family.

That got me thinking. If you're a young man today, drowning in college debt, where are you going to get the money to pay for a kid, let alone two, three, or four? Even if you managed to graduate debt-free, your income is still likely to be lower than your equivalent in the "baby boom" years. In other words, kids are going to be put on the back burner in favor of more immediate concerns.

But that's not even the beginning of it. Insidious things like the non-dischargeability of student loans in bankruptcy look set to keep many kids in financial dire straits for a long time to come. And the cost of everything keeps going up like crazy. It's almost like it's by design.

I think there is a growing tide of resentment in young men against all this bullshit. Men now want to get married more than women, an exact opposite of how it was in the past. But they're more or less shut out, because women are at parity or above them in status. This can't last. Men don't like being crippled and emasculated, and eventually they're going to boil over.

We're probably already seeing some subtle effects of this. The gerontocracy is turning increasingly reactionary and unhinged, desperately holding onto its ways, oblivious to the fact that it is obsolete. Its actions can be seen in almost every entrenched rent-seeking institution, be it banking, academia, government, military, or the courts. On the other hand, there is room for reactionary thinking among young men as well, in the direction of dismantling feminism.

Which form of reaction will win out? Who knows, but young men must figure out a way to free themselves of their burdens. Their emasculation inhibits their emancipation.

Mike Stone and the Traditionalist Oppression of Low-Status Men

Last month, a kid from a Minnesota high school named Mike Stone made national news for successfully asking out a porn star to prom. Apparently, none of the girls in his area accepted his simple invitation to be his prom date, and so he got the idea to ask out hundreds of porn stars on Twitter. Megan Piper, a young starlet, accepted his invitation because she had never been to prom herself. Amid the fanfare,  the school board found out, and promptly banned her from attending.

Megan Piper (19) and Mike Stone (18).

Now this post wouldn't be complete without an analysis of the societal reaction to this kid's breaking out from the shackles of rejection. Many bloggers in the manosphere, yours truly included, have documented the harsh treatment low-status men suffer from all corners of society. We have also noted how psychotic and panicky some people, mainly women, become when a low-status man acts "out of key" with his status.

In addition, I think that America, at present, is set up as an anti-fun society, and this is the result of a weird combination of ancestral Puritanism and middle-age-bitch feminism. Just check out this screed from Ms.  district superintendent:

"This prom date will not be allowed to attend the Tartan prom as her attendance would be prohibited under Tartan's standard prom procedures and would be inconsistent with two school district policies," Phillips writes.

Notice how there isn't even a hint of happiness or, "this is cool, but we can't allow this" in the writing. It's just an emotionless, mechanical rejection, oh-so-similar to the rejection he faced at the hands of so many of his female "peers." The reaction of his parents was one of embarrassment and shame, instead of support. The only people backing him up were his male peers, because they know how hard it is to get women, and are much more in touch with things.

So you see how society is setup to be against male liberation, and especially low-status male liberation. This is part of their whole hysteria against porn- it frees men of some of their desperation. Traditional society is set up to step on low-status men as much as possible, which is why I'm against it.

Where is the outrage at the women who rejected him? Where is the "embarrassment" at the community for providing no woman was willing to go on a prom date with him? He's not a bad-looking guy. As usual, none of the blame is heaped on the women, but this guy suffers all the ill effects of not having a date. He turned to Twitter because no one in his community was giving him a break. They should be embarrassed at themselves, not him.

Here's his twitter. He's hosting his own prom with the girl on May 12, and is having some sort of fundraiser for it. Of course everybody's jumping on board now that he's famous. Kid could use a different getup and maybe lose some weight, but otherwise he's okay.

Health Care, the Lack thereof, and how it Impacts Young Men

This may not be something solely affecting young men, but it does affect them and their health outcomes.

In a word, the health care system in America is insane. The resources are completely mis-allocated. From a wealth standpoint, there should be no problem providing health care to everybody. Yet there are literally tens of millions of people who are uninsured, and are one serious accident away from bankruptcy.

A lot of young men I talk to seem afflicted with a combination of youthful indiscretion and frankly far-right-wing beliefs. Many don't have any health insurance at all, because they don't think they'll need it. What will they do if they, God forbid, get in a serious accident and require hundreds of thousands of dollars in surgeries? This insane level of recklessness is only one side of the coin, though. The other is the far-right-wing belief that if you can't afford health care, you deserve to die.

Why do I call this far-right-wing and not simply right-wing? Because condemning people to death for a weakness is a far-right idea. They couch it by claiming that someone who cannot afford health care must not have their shit together, but that's basically saying the same thing. It's not even a true retort because in many cases, the people who can't afford health care are upstanding members of society, and do have their shit together. They got in an accident, or suffered cancer, and their insurance company decided to cut them off because it deemed the treatment too expensive. Such people have to declare bankruptcy to fund their treatment, and that's if they're lucky.

I guarantee you that VERY FEW young guys today can afford to treat themselves for cancer, or after an accident. Many are saddled with huge amounts of student loan debt to begin with. If they want to get married, buy a house, etc. they don't have the money to pay for extremely expensive medical care! Heck, it's doubtful they'd be able to afford it even if they lived in a trailer. Yet many adhere to insane far-right-wing ideologies that could condemn them to bankruptcy and ruination at a moment's notice.

Now is not the time for far-right-wing ideologies in youth. Young men are already being impacted by the harshness of these ideologies - in addition to the heavy student loan burden, their jobs are being taken away from them by less expensive H1-Bs. Snickering twits like Eric Cantor threaten to destroy their Social Security and Medicare guarantees. In a word, they're being screwed, and screwed badly.

Now I say that these ideologies are far-right wing, and not right-wing. Why am I making that distinction? Because I don't think that any decently sane conservative would support the current system, or a "You can't afford it? You die" system. A sane conservative would recognize that things like the Hippocratic Oath don't only apply to the rich, and set up a charity to guarantee health care to everyone.

It could be very simple. Have a means test. You can't afford insurance? Health insurance drops you because you're too expensive? You get care. Why hasn't something so simple been set up?

There is the argument that such a charity would make it more palatable for insurance companies to just drop people, but it's not like they aren't doing it anyway. No, the simple fact that such a charity doesn't even exist reveals a serious gap between conservative ideology and reality. Then they to normalize this absence with far-right justifications.

Then of course there's the triage argument of "oh we can't afford to treat everybody." That's obvious bullshit. Triage is only valid when there are literally not enough resources to treat everybody. Sorry to sound like a Leftist, but companies are making record profits, the richest have never been richer, and the wealth distribution disparity keeps widening. They have more than enough money to help people in need. I'm not advocating widespread redistribution of wealth, but I think there should be a minimum requirement, such as when a person needs health care.

When the health care act was signed in 2010, Republicans were in an uproar. All of them voted against it- both in the House and Senate. But even a cursory glance at the provision reveals how much safer health care will be, especially to young men, under the act. First, you don't have to buy separate insurance until you're 27. That helps a LOT and you can use the extra money to pay down student loan debt. Insurance companies can no longer drop you or refuse to take you up because of conditions that you have no control over. Yeah, you have to pay in. So what?

The Republicans just hate it because imposes a large number of regulations on insurance companies. They're not against forcing people to pay for something - see the huge military tax burden. In fact, a system similar to this was their idea. Somehow I don't think they really care about the young men they send to wars, nor do they care if a young man is ruined by college and medical expenses and lack of job opportunities. Fuck them, honestly. Not that the Dems are much better, but they at least pass things that help young men, despite their overbearing feminist tendencies.

Modern Marriage and the Dilemma Younger Men Face

As many of you know, marriage, in its modern form, is on the rocks. Fewer and fewer people are getting married, a trend that does not look to end soon. But what about people who want to get married? What about people who want to create a stable, healthy environment for raising children in?

It looks like those people are SOL. Feminists are clearly hellbent on eliminating (traditional, male-friendly) marriage; one even admitted as much to me. How does that work out in practice? Are they pushing to ban marriage? No. But they are forcing changes in the laws ("marriage reform") that make it increasingly unlikely for a marriage to remain stable, especially in the face of societal propaganda and social exposure (read: opportunities to cheat.)

You see, what feminists have claimed to be doing all along is ridding marriage law of the parts that inhibit a woman from leaving an abusive husband. Increasingly, though, their true colors are showing through. They're all but admitting that it's about making it as easy as possible for a woman to leave marriage, no matter what:

The switch to a unilateral divorce regime redistributes power in a marriage, giving power to the person who wants out, and reducing the power previously held by the partner interested in preserving the marriage.

In the vast majority of cases, it's the woman who wants out. And it's great for her, too: Presuming there is no abuse, she gets automatic child custody, which usually means that she gets the house. The ex-husband has to pay child support and alimony, among other things, all based on a decision that she makes.

This would be a great system if every husband was an abusive brute, or a loser who quit his job and cooped himself up all day playing video games. But that's far from the case. Evidence shows that women are divorcing because of vague feelings of unhappiness in otherwise functional relationships. This may not be the husband's fault at all (e.g. she may have come across a more attractive male) but it's still treated as his fault.

And this is where my critique of people like Athol Kay, Hawaiian Libertarian, and the like comes in. These people claim that you can use "game" to rescue a marriage that is on the rocks. The problem with this mentality is twofold: 1) It is not possible for every man to execute "game" properly, and 2) the incentives for female-initiated divorce continue to be enriched.

So while these guys may have had some success regaining attraction from their wives, who is to say they won't get burned in the long run anyways? Sure, if I were in a marriage and had everything to lose, I would definitely try to follow Kay's and HL's advice. But I don't think that game is enough to make marriage have a reasonable risk profile for men considering it. This is the message that the Black Pill has been trying to get across in his admittedly inflammatory posts,* and I think Ferdinand is smart enough to realize it as well.

You can see the dilemma us younger men face: We want to have a healthy, loving relationship down the road (I think even BP wants it, despite his claims to the contrary) but we're faced with an environment that threatens relationship stability across the board. We're faced with an environment of reduced male mating choice, making the relationships we do get into more dull and boring. We're faced with women who, on average, aren't working nearly as hard as they should be on making themselves attractive, and as a result just don't have the "spark" that they should. We're faced with societal propaganda that both encourages and  forgives female cheating and trading up, which most women have internalized.

What to do in reponse? That is one major question of this blog.


*I think BP takes it too far when he says that "game doesn't exist." But he has a point in that game is NOT enough to rely on in marriage, especially when huge amounts of financial resources are at stake.