Rockets, space and men: Moonbat Central strikes (out) again

Logic, rational thought and reasoning ability are conspicuous by their absence in this screed.

Frittering away your life savings on a red sports car is so last century. Instead, today’s man who is grappling with the limitations of his mortality spends $90 million on a rocket to launch a $100,000 electric car, helmed by a robot by the name of “Starman,” into space.

. . .

These men ... are not only heavily invested in who can get their rocket into space first, but in colonizing Mars. The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one. Indeed, there is no ethical consideration among these billionaires about whether this should be done; rather, the conversation is when it will be done. Because, in the eyes of these intrepid explorers, this is the only way to save humanity.

It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking. You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the pussy.

It’s there, so just grab it because you can.

The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something — is a patriarchal one.

. . .

... the impulse to colonize — to colonize lands, to colonize peoples, and, now that we may soon be technologically capable of doing so, colonizing space — has its origins in gendered power structures. Entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership. The presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer and colonize something new.

. . .

The raping and pillaging of the Earth, and the environmental chaos that doing so has unleashed, are integral to the process of colonization. And the connection of the treatment of Mother Earth to women is more than symbolic: Study after study has shown that climate change globally affects women more than men ... While men compete over whose rocket is the biggest, women are fighting to stay alive against assaults on their personhood — and their planet.

There's more at the link.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to learn that the author is "the Editorial and Communications Manager of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University".  Where else would one find inspiration for such drivel?

• "Colonization as patriarchy" - WTF???  From its earliest days, colonization was all about obtaining resources for the colonial power, not about patriarchy.  It was (and probably will always be) commercial, rather than societal or cultural, in nature.
• "No ethical consideration" - well, in commercial terms, generally, yes.  In other ways, no.  Don't forget, a primary impulse to the age of colonization was to spread the Christian gospel to the "heathen".  (They may not have wanted it to be spread to them, of course, but nobody asked their opinion.)
• The origin of colonization was in "gendered power structures"?  Only because society happened to be set up that way at the time - and remember, women in powerful positions (Elizabeth I of England, and before her Isabella I of Castile - sponsor of Christopher Columbus - and others) supported colonization just as strongly.  I doubt whether the gender of those in power had much to do with colonization for economic and/or religious purposes.
• Equating colonization with sexual assault?  That's pushing it way beyond any rational connection that I can see.  Same goes for climate change and colonization.  This author is making connections between entirely unrelated concepts, and offering no solid, factual, verifiable evidence for doing so.  It's argument from emotion rather than reality.

One wishes that authors such as this would take a couple of courses in Logic.  It's extremely helpful when formulating arguments for or against anything, because it forces one to be rational in one's approach - something that's sadly lacking in the above diatribe.  The author really needs a better understanding of logical fallacies before setting out to argue her case.  Her lack of it shows.

Peter