Amber Fraley
3 min readJul 15, 2022

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A few things first--you're not an "independent" and these questions aren't sincere, but here we go:

How is it rational to ask anyone to champion their own self-demise?

No one is asking men to do this. However, men in this society tend to be overly emotional and sensitive and perceive "attacks" where there are none. A more liberal society would benefit men--you'd have more time off with your family, you'd be less likely to go into medical debt, qualified people would get the good jobs and management positions instead of the good old boys network installing morons, etc., but straight white men have chosen instead to insist you're being marginalized. That's not what's happening at all.

If capitalism is evil and meritocracy is invalid since “the system is rigged,” how do you propose motivating people to put forth their best effort? And how do you fairly reward those who do?

People are already putting forth their best efforts. White men tend to assume that because you have the best jobs and the best pay, that means you're doing the bulk of the work. That's utter bullshit. You really must not be paying attention to the work other people are doing wherever you're employed. In fact, women often volunteer to do unpaid work at work that men *never* volunteer for--arranging parties and "team building" exercises, making sure guests and visitors to the business are taken care of, dealing with customers, etc.

?https://hbr.org/2018/07/why-women-volunteer-for-tasks-that-dont-lead-to-promotions

How can society provide “positive rights” without obligating others to provide them potentially against their will (thereby infringing upon their own “negative rights”) Or to put it more clearly, how do you provide free health care if no one wants to be a doctor?

You pay them. Free healthcare doesn't mean doctors don't get paid. It's pretty simple to look up how universal healthcare works in every other developed nation on the planet. They have doctors. We also need to subsidize the medical education of capable students who don't come from wealthy families so that we have enough doctors.

If moderating hate speech doesn’t count as blatant censorship (or it does but it’s deemed worth the tradeoff), who gets to decide what constitutes unacceptable language, and at what cost?

Who is moderating hate speech? Not the government (yet). This is a free country with free speech. You are free to spout whatever racist, misogynistic language you like, and others are free to tell you you're full of shit. Don't like it? Move somewhere without freedom.

How do you expect to instill respect for democratic institutions when you ruthlessly disparage the founders who created them?

This is the most fragile, bizarre belief to hold in a free country. The Founding Fathers were people, not gods and not kings. They regularly fought and criticized each other, often in the press. Again, this is a free country with free speech. The fact conservatives can't understand this is crazy. We are fully capable of pointing out all the great things the Founding Fathers did while also pointing out their hypocricies and failings. The level of unearned entitlement--even reverence--white men in this society expect is incredible.

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Amber Fraley
Amber Fraley

Written by Amber Fraley

Writing about abortion rights, mental illness, trauma, narcissistic abuse & survival, politics. Journalist, novelist, wife, mom, Kansan, repro rights activist.

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