These people exist


I’ve been seeing versions of this claim since at least the Reagan years.

I don’t think the proper response is to point out that Michael Moates is kind of homely himself. The core problem is judging people by artificial standards of appearance — something that is totally irrelevant to their humanity and moral standards and intelligence. Isn’t the “We win the political debate because we can find pretty women in our clique” intrinsically wrong and fallacious?

I think we can just say that someone who makes this stupid argument has already lost.

Comments

  1. davidnangle says

    I’ve seen the strength of that argument rest on the attractiveness of Fox personalities, the females of which are, of course, CHOSEN for that attribute.

    Science is not being done.

  2. says

    The inimitable George Carlin pointed this out over thirty five years ago when he said “Have you ever noticed that the people who are against abortion are people you wouldn’t want to f*ck anyway?”

  3. nomadiq says

    Michael Motes is apparently unfamiliar with the notion of self fulfilling prophecy.

    Step 1: create a culture of only listening to women because you want to look at them (and not really listen)

    Step 2: observe how your opponents don’t do that (well, do that less so – the left can work on this too).

    Step 3: conclude only ‘attractive women’, as defined by yourself, align with you politically

    Step 4: ignore the existence of copious amounts of women at Trump rallies that don’t conform to your ideal of attractive.

    Step 5: masturbate to Tomi Lahren because she is an astute political commentor. And apparently read playboy for the articles 🙄.

  4. gijoel says

    Maybe that’s why there are so many feminists. Cause conservative men are so damn ugly they couldn’t recruit a cockroach.

    /s

  5. doubtthat says

    This is obviously absurd and sexist, but I find the logic of the following amusing:

    1) Liberal women are ugly.
    2) Goddamned, liberal Hollywood.

    I mean, the vast majority of the beautiful women in movies, on tv, in magazines…etc. are liberal, and they never stop complaining about that.

  6. albz says

    I’d like to know, instead: is Moates basic claim actually true? Is there some way to universally define “attractiveness” on a 1-100 level, then get the average score of conservative/liberal women?
    If so, then maybe we could try and understand the reasons (I strongly suspect that Jesus has nothing to do with it anyway. Maybe cultural aspects?).

  7. alixmo says

    PZ Myers, this is a bit off topic (misogyny is a theme though): Can you please comment on the issue of abortion in Argentina and the power of the Catholic Church? Here is an article from today: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/09/argentina-abortion-defeat-shows-enduring-power-of-catholic-church

    I see the Catholic Church is a “force of evil” due to its treatment of women as second class humans and the denial of reproductive rights. The question of abortion is not the only problem, the BAN OF CONTRACEPTIVES (it just had its 50th anniversary) makes their agenda even more hideous. If the media and politicians do not face the truth that the Catholic Church is based on misogyny, they are aiding injustice.

    Contraceptives free women to make the decision how many children they want and when. Because of contraceptives they are able to learn, study and find (good) work.

    The ban of contraceptives and the connected issue of legal abortion show the true colours of the Catholic Church: Confining women to the role of wive and mother, and the domestic realm.

    This is unacceptable. It is time for people around the world to see the truth about the inhumane anti-women agenda of the “Church”.

    The shift of the Vatican`s power away from “the West” is an alarming sign. The “Church” is using vulnerable, often poor and/or under-educated people to push their regressive agenda. HUMAN RIGHTS ARE UNIVERSAL! And women are human beings, deserving the same rights as men.

    Believers with a consciousness should “dump” the Catholic Church because of their unashamed promotion of the idea that women are basically only defined as vessels for offspring.

    And Pope Francis is not the radical progressive innovator that liberals want to see in him. On the question of women, he is as stubborn and backwards as the rest of his “old men`s club” in Rome.

    Quote: If anyone needs evidence of the continuing power of the Catholic church, the vote in Argentina’s senate to maintain the country’s ban on almost all abortions provides it. The failure of the bill to legalise abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy is a blow to the majority of Argentinians, who backed reform, and to thousands of women forced to resort to illegal terminations.

    But it will be hailed by the church, and in particular by Pope Francis, the first Argentinian pontiff. Despite progressive views on many social justice issues, he has remained unyielding on matters relating to women’s control of their bodies. Francis, who was archbishop of Buenos Aires before being elected pope in 2013, has maintained close links to the country of his birth. According to the Clarín newspaper, he personally requested anti-abortion legislators to lobby their senate colleagues to reject the bill. Priests and bishops spoke forcefully against abortion from the pulpit. (…)

    A few weeks ago, Pope Francis described abortion as the “white glove” equivalent of the Nazi-era eugenics programme. (…) He urged families to accept children “as God gives them to us”. End of quote

    There is nothing more hypocritical than a wifeless, childless, sexless old man telling (often poor, often little educated) women what to do with their one life and their reproductive organs.

    If I would believe in a God, I would say he and all his priests should go to hell, as they deserve.

  8. Saad says

    albz, #8

    I’d like to know, instead: is Moates basic claim actually true? Is there some way to universally define “attractiveness” on a 1-100 level, then get the average score of conservative/liberal women?
    If so, then maybe we could try and understand the reasons (I strongly suspect that Jesus has nothing to do with it anyway. Maybe cultural aspects?).

    FFS.

    Can we go a couple of months without one of these people passing through here. It feels like we just got done with paxoll and billyjoe.

  9. blf says

    Is there some way to universally define “attractiveness” on a 1–100 level

    Draw numbers out of a hat.

  10. Akira MacKenzie says

    Note the use of the name “Jesus” rather than “God.” I realize that Trinitarian Christian holds that they’re supposed to be one and the same being, but I’ve always heard the actual “creation” of the universe attributed to the “Father” avatar rather than the “son.”

    I want to think this is significant for some reason, but I’m not entirely sure why.

  11. consciousness razor says

    Is there some way to universally define “attractiveness” on a 1–100 level

    No. Throughout the universe, it must be defined on a scale from 3.6 to 491π/7.

    then get the average score of conservative/liberal women?

    42

  12. mnb0 says

    MM is right. What everybody forgets is that “we” according to MM means “us antiliberal christians”. So it’s a circular argument and in MM’s circles circular arguments are correct as long as they conclude what they want to conclude.

  13. Usernames! 🦑 says

    I’d like to know, instead: is Moates basic claim actually true?
    — albz (#8)

    No.

    Now imagine that you are going to determine, on an objective scale, which is the most aesthetically pleasing: Van Gough, Duchamp, Mapplethorpe (nice try!) or Banksy.

    Hint: You cannot do it, because art, like beauty, is not objective.

  14. says

    Given that Conservatives, especially the dudes, are complaining about being unable to find a partner, it seems that god has made conservative women rare, so the conservative men are sexually frustrated by god’s design.
    BTW, if you have ever wondered about their wholesale attack on women’s freedoms from reproductive rights to the attempted rollback to the housewife-provider model, to incel terrorism, it’s exactly that: women have decided that they’d rather be single than with them, so they don’t get the p*ssy they think is their birthright, and the free domestic labour.

  15. anat says

    For some reason I have a feeling what MM means by ‘attractive’ is ‘more likely to be white’.

  16. says

    On the one hand, people shouldn’t be shamed for their looks.

    On the other hand, I can still very much appreciate that people are replying to that tweet with photos of Moates.

  17. says

    On the one hand, people shouldn’t be shamed for their looks.

    unless they’re being fucking hypocrites.
    It’s kind of similar with sexual attraction and activity: People are certainly OK to have casual sex or to divorce and remarry, but they don#t get to lecture others on those issues.

  18. microraptor says

    Akira MacKenzie @12: I’ve noticed some Evangelicals stress Jesus like that. I think it’s an attempt to differentiate themselves from those heretical Catholics.

  19. nimue says

    Can we please stop this?

    The problem with countering remarks like this with insults about someone’s personal appearance is that it reinforces the idea that the most decisive factor in human sexual relations is physical attractiveness on a large scale* and it is not!!

    They sure are trying to convince us of that, though, aren’t they? Please don’t help them.

    Every time…

    Every single time…

    Every single fucking time…

    … we do this we play right into their hands. I wish our message was more like:

    “Ok, knock yourselves out with that, we have all this other worthwhile stuff over here to look over.” (end of conversation)

    Focusing on attractiveness fetisizes youth while subtly putting down anyone who doesn’t fit traditional beauty standards like minorities, those of us not in the bloom of youth, and the differently abled and on and on and on and on.

    That isn’t the worst of it.

    It’s a LIE! It isn’t even a little bit true, you know. Look around at the world and notice all the average, less than perfect looking people out there – many (nay most) of whom will have partnered with someone at some point. There is just so much more in the universe of human interaction involved in getting two people together for sex that this whole notion of boiling it down to some numeric score is .. ridiculously absurd and tragic in its’ popularity.

    This is a filthy lie sold to the desperate to create fear, uncertainty, doubt, and insecurity in others (often the young) to sway them to their side. What they need from us – what I implore more people to give them (young people, I mean) are valid, TRUE reasons to listen to us and not some moaning babble about who looks good shipped with who.

    For fucks sake.

    Please.

    *I understand that some people use this as their litmus test their entire lives and, perhaps, some (most?) of us use this sort of thing for part of our lives (until we learn better) but it is NOT the general way the world works. We’re buying into the delusion to pretend it does.
    **pardon my potty mouth. I’m on edge today. I really loved reading Caine. *sad* That, and I find today, I mean it.

  20. says

    I’m more than willing to admit being a plain woman has one big advantage: I don’t get come-ons and pick-up lines from men I’m not interested in. Which serves the dual mercy of saving me from having to figure out a polite way to say “hell no”, and saving them from having to hear it from me.