above.

Here's the definition of infantilize:

1. To reduce to an infantile state or condition: “It creates a crisis that infantilizes them—causes grown men to squabble like kids about trivial things” (New Yorker). 2. To treat or condescend to as if still a young child: “The Victorian physician infantilized his patient” (Judith Moore).

Of course "feelings" are involved. How not? But to say that -- for example, outrage over misogyny, or outrage over process violatioons -- ends with feelings, instead of merely beginning with them is, IMNSHO "infantilizing" within the dictionary definition of the word.

It's nothing to do with projection; it's the dictionary definition of the word.

I just don't understand this constant repetition that your somehow being silenced. Yet here you are, posting self-described rants. Which is it to be? Silence, or ranting?

[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.

and I'm not about to list specific commentors here. If you want to get down to that level on what I see as being told to STFU let's take it private.

That I and others have been told to shut up, that there are a growing number of supposedly sacred subjects that cannot be broached because somebody gets uncomfortable, is starkly evident all over nearly every political thread with substantive disagreement and has been for many months. Hardly credible that you have not noticed. As I wrote clearly above, sometimes I let it slide and sometimes I push back, but I am damn if I will shut up because someone no better than me says I should. There is no disconnect, no "Which is it to be?" involved. STFU is happening, I'm fed up, I'm complaining, and it is no more mysterious than that.

Infantilize and patronize: These are your interpretations. They are not based on anything I said. They are how you choose to view what I said, but that does not make them accurate. All of the hoorah around sexism in the primary continues on today as a defining issue amongst a small and rapidly shrinking set. (That is not to say that the rest of us do not feel anger and outrage and frustration over bigotry including sexism; we just don't see it as being as immediately acute an issue as, say, global destruction.) The terms most frequently employed by the Sexism Is Paramount adherents are angry, pissed off, fed up, outraged, offended, etc; all emotional terminology describing feelings.

You say "Of course 'feelings' are involved. How not?" What then is your problem? That's all I am saying. When you say "But to say that — for example, outrage over misogyny, or outrage over process violations — ends with feelings, instead of merely beginning with them is, IMNSHO 'infantilizing'..." you are projecting claims that I did not make. It may well be that someone somewhere has transitioned to an intellectual, dispassionate, rational position that rejects the Democrats and Obama and obtains a beneficial alternative; I haven't seen any evidence of that, but I am open to the possibility. I have asked many times for such an exposition, but have yet to see a plausible response. What I do see continually are purely emotional statements, proposing the entirely irrational transaction that losing will somehow (Underwear Gnome Logic) transform into victory sometime later, that reluctantly but deliberately choosing the lesser of two evils is somehow not a correct choice and embracing the greater of two evils is morally superior, that Obama has failed to say some set of magic words in just the right prescribed incantation sequence and therefore the Democrats must be condemned and the truly evil Republicans should be embraced, and on and on in that emotionally-driven irrational vein to the point of nausea.

I write "hurt feelings" because that is exactly what is happening here. People got their feelings hurt, they got angry, and they are still angry. In many, that anger is being nurtured and preserved, the embers blown on and fed with whatever scraps of fuel can be gathered, and held close to the heart where the hurt has blossomed into full-blown hatred. The idea that punishing Obama and the Democratic Party by voting for McCain is a good and rational decision makes no sense from the standpoint of logic, no matter how by that anger and hatred it is twisted and turned. Doing so in the actual hope of electing the Republican ticket is not just irrational, it is self-destructively irrational; it is a pathological position, driven entirely by emotion that has become unbounded by any reason whatsoever.

There is nothing "infantile" about falling into that emotional trap, it happens to adults all the time. To call it out does not accuse anyone of being “infantile”, merely that they are enmeshed in an emotional response that has overwhelmed rational thinking. There is nothing "paternal" about pointing it out; it happens to both men and women, and the accident of conception that made me male has no bearing on my powers of observation in this regard. That you dismiss my considered opinion, however, one IMNSHO that is very much reality-based, by charges that impugn my character and my intellectual honesty says volumes about your own investment in emotionally-based decisions which you cannot defend through logic or reason; instead, out of a desperation born of that deficit of rationality, you resort to demonizing and demeaning me. These are your interpretations and your feelings; they have nothing objectively to do with me or anything I have said.

I don't think you or others who hold similar views on current electoral strategy are bad people, in fact almost all of you I see as very good people indeed; but I do think you are definitely wrong. I don't need to reach for polysyllabic denigratives to make that point, and if you have a logical point to make then neither should you. When, however, as occurred upthread here, the arguments include falsehoods and deceit then I sometimes feel the need to comment and set the record straight in no uncertain terms. I would be remiss to see arguments being made here based on error – or worse – and let them go unchallenged when I know that they are false. If others decide to feel discomfited by that, so be it.

People who believe that the state should not control women's bodies don't get to be on the GOP ticket. Ergo, IMO, people on the GOP ticket are not feminists and do not believe in complete equality for women. (I'm not sure I'd say that the people on the Democratic ticket do either, btw.)

I am not attacking Sarah Palin because she's a woman. I'm attacking her because she supports policies that are aimed at women and are bad for women.

At this point, however, I'm not sure what point you're arguing. If it's that Palin is a feminist, then we simply disagree. If it's that Palin shouldn't be criticized from a feminist perspective, then we disagree (I certainly criticize Obama, Biden and McCain from this perspective). If that she wouldn't seek to impose the positions she's clearly stated she holds (e.g. overturning Roe) once in office, then we disagree. I have no reason to doubt that Palin would support the policies she says she would support.

i'm not giving her credit so much as i'm trying to point out that the stereotypes and images of her may not match the reality.

take Kucinich--he rocks on almost everything--but he's pro-life. It's not a legislating priority for him tho and he'd never work to overturn Roe. So, does that make him less good or anti-woman or anti-feminist? If he spoke against choice more would it?--even if he still would never legislate that way or make it a priority?