I’m adding a link to a new blog I encountered today:
Erica’s Thoughts. Erica is a Jewish woman who takes her religion seriously and deals with issues that will resonate with many LDS people such as how to be a good corporate citizen in her work and still be true to the Sabbath (her post on this topic involved a corporate retreat that included a Saturday in Orlando). She also has an insightful discussion on anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism – is there a difference? I think Latter-day Saints can learn a lot from our religious Jewish brothers and sisters.
One item I found on her blog is a link to a story on how
the German welfare system may force women into prostitution. Now that the liberal German government has legalized prostitution, brothels are using government jobs services to hire employees. A provision in their welfare system specifies that welfare recipients under age 55 cannot receive unemployment benefits if they refuse to take a job. So already there has been a case of a woman losing benefits for refusing to work in a brothel. (Feb. 7 update: the first comment to this post indicates that this may be a false allegation due to some bad journalism from the London Telegraph. Stay tuned….)
Ah, the sweet fruits of socialism (here I go on one of my rants – please close this window now if you are offended by conservative views). I know my far-left friends will bristle at the suggestion of some kind of link between their political ideology and the degradation of women, but the basic Marxist call in the Communist Manifesto for the abolition of the family and the complete “equality” of women is ultimately a call to destroy the sacred roles of men and women as fathers and mothers and eradicate the respect that men must have for women. As in Plato’s big-government republic, where the family is destroyed and women are essentially consigned to a state brothel operated according to principles of totalitarian eugenics (see Chapter 5 of The Republic, if you can bear such revolting “wisdom”), the Marxist mindset ultimately regards men and women as animals who procreate for the State and who have no other inherent value than to serve the State. (I suppose they are then “equal” in the sense of both being degraded from humans to mere cattle.) And the practical result of this Marxist “equality” is that women are nothing more than sex objects. It is no surprise to find that some of the most prominent American symbols of women’s “liberation” live degraded lives of lonely immorality. “Women of the world, lock yourself inside a cage and rejoice: now you are liberated!” And if America is still too unliberated for you, please move to a more enlightened nation like Germany or the Netherlands where you can enjoy socialist compassion and find all sorts of interesting jobs. (Actually, try North Korea or Cuba or China or the Sudan if you want to experience the full benefits of socialism. They have plenty of openings. For some reason, there are more people risking their lives to get out than to get in.)
Uh hum. Excuse me. Where was I? Oh, yes, Erica’s blog. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the world!
Jeff, I recently read about forced prostitution in Germany on the fair board, I think this refutes the allegation.
“Anyways, here is what a cursory search of the Internet turned up:
QUOTE
The article in the Daily Telegraph seems to have been cobbled together from several German sources.
The information about the waitress who was told to interview for a job that turned out to be at a brothel was taken from an article on “jungle-world.com,” which calls itself a “leftist weekly.” That article was posted July 30, 2003 (!!). The 25-year-old waitress was told to contact the company “Reni Massage.” The woman found the company’s website and figured out that it was a brothel and decided to not get in touch. According to the Berlin employment center, the job posting had been sent to the woman by mistake. The job offer had been for bar staff (not for “sexual services,” as the Telegraph article claims) and it hadn’t been obvious from the information that the employment center had received that the company was a brothel.
The second part of the Daily Telegraph article contains information also found in an article from the leftist alternative Berlin daily “tageszeitung,” filed on December 18, 2004. Both articles quote a Hamburg lawyer called Mechthild Garweg (note that the Telegraph misspells her first name). In the “tageszeitung” article, Ms. Garweg notes that there is nothing in the law regulating unemployment benefits that would prevent an employment center to force a woman to work as a prostitute if she wants to keep her benefits. It is clear from the article that this is merely a theoretical possibility. German employment centers have meanwhile asserted that they would not be passing on job offers for prostitution.
– Info re article
QUOTE
2/1/2005
Idiot Journalist of the Year
Filed under: Morons Media Lameness by Xrlq @ 2:29 pm
The year is only a month old, but it’s not too early to start taking nominations. So far, at least two three journalistic numbskulls are definitely in the running. The first is Sarah Boxer of the New York Times, whose baseless speculations about Ali Fadhil and his brothers at Iraq the Model put all of them in danger. The second is Clare Chapman of the Daily Telegraph, who used bits and pieces from a story in a German tabloid to essentially make up a story about German unemployment agencies supposedly coercing unemployed women into becoming prostitutes. The third is Robert H. Reid of the Ass. Press, who proudly broke today’s story about the capture of G.I. Joe by Iraqi militants insurgents terrorists idiots.
-Idiot journalist of the year
– Unemployed German Prostitutes ”
I hope this clears things up.
OK. I posted a note in the blog entry indicating that this may be due to bad journalism. I don’t think it’s a fully resolved issue yet.
Thank you for your comments on my blog, and for your link to my blog. I added another post that takes into account all the questions raised by the original, highly questionable article. I would still argue that there is area for concern, but perhaps not nearly as much as originally.
Erica
PS I would also like to thank the LDS for their wonderful genealogy work. I have used their resources on a variety of occasions, and they are invaluable.
Thank you!
Nice blog. Keep it up …
Hi there
Apologies for posting an off topic question here.
I am invitation your views on ABORTION in order to present a case to help those in the developing world.
I personally see abortion as a NECESSARY EVIL and that unwanted pregnancy is not only a personal problem and it is also a very real problem for the society at large.
Do you think it is right to burden say a 15 years old school-going girl with a new life when she is yet to have any economic mean to sustain herself and obviously, most girls of her age are not mentally ready for a family life. Furthermore, is it fair to rob her of her career, aspiration, dream etc., in the name of preserving a life that is yet to be fully developed?
If you have an opinion, please email it to me at divinetalk@gmail.com or if you wish, you may post your comment here: Your Onion Counts!
Also, what do you think of the recent “Pharmacists Refused Contraceptive Prescriptions”.
Do you think Pharmacists have the rights to Play God?
good ponits!