6 Responses to “Cato Policy Report: China, Gold, and More”
L.R.
In the spirit of “Just Plain Dumb,” I have to add an item to the pile. This is from the Report’s back-page “To Be Governed…” section:
“ALL THOSE WHOâ??D LIKE TO LIVE IN RWANDA,
CUBA, OR VIETNAM, RAISE YOUR HANDS
In the current U.S. Congress, women
account for only 16.3% of the members:
16 of 100 in the Senate and 71 of 435 in
the House of Representatives. Eighty-four
nations have a greater percentage of
female legislators than the U.S., including
our neighbors Mexico and Canada,
as well as Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba.
â??Parade, Dec. 16, 2007”
I can’t think of a reading of that headline that doesn’t point to either cringe-making disingenuousness or a total lack of insight. (I will say, though, that it’s quite out of place in the otherwise thoughtful issue.)
I don’t quite understand the puzzlement. The Parade remark seemed to imply that Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba were somehow superior to the U.S. I don’t see why it’s not an insight to suggest that, perhaps, few people would choose to live in those countries.
On the contrary, “as well as Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba” works as a rhetorical device precisely *because* those are so often considered (correctly, of course) generally miserable places. It would be no surprise to learn that sexual equity has permeated Sweden’s government — but Vietnam’s?
More generally, I submit that praising one aspect of a country’s social structure does not equal praising the entire country, or even an aspect (here, a country’s entire system of government) that subsumes the first. (I hardly think that Parade magazine, of all things, would propagandize for third-world Communism.)
If Cato were to praise the reforms Pinochet made to Chile’s social-security system, and someone responded by pointing out that Chile under Pinochet was monstrously repressive and violent, would you take him seriously or roll your eyes?
That’s a fair point, but I think that the editor was pointing to the lumping of them those countries with the others. It’s not all that far from what seems to be your take on the issue. The “Gender Equality” of Cuba is really not about equality; men hold the positions of power in that society and allocate some offices to women for window dressing. Mexico and Canada are one thing…but how do non-democracies deserve to be on the list?
I see your point (Rwanda is a democracy, though). I think that whoever sent Parade those statistics was making a point not about the relative desirability of living in those countries but the distance we in the US have to go in overcoming sexism. As you point out, sexual equity doesn’t neatly increase as the proportion of women in government approaches 50%, but at least Parade is broaching a real issue: whether, perhaps, it’d be wise for the US to take some cues–at least some broad cultural ones–from abroad. In contrast, the Policy Report headline echoed in my head as the easy jingoistic retort to any complaint about our society: “If you don’t like it, why don’t you move?”
In the spirit of “Just Plain Dumb,” I have to add an item to the pile. This is from the Report’s back-page “To Be Governed…” section:
“ALL THOSE WHOâ??D LIKE TO LIVE IN RWANDA,
CUBA, OR VIETNAM, RAISE YOUR HANDS
In the current U.S. Congress, women
account for only 16.3% of the members:
16 of 100 in the Senate and 71 of 435 in
the House of Representatives. Eighty-four
nations have a greater percentage of
female legislators than the U.S., including
our neighbors Mexico and Canada,
as well as Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba.
â??Parade, Dec. 16, 2007”
I can’t think of a reading of that headline that doesn’t point to either cringe-making disingenuousness or a total lack of insight. (I will say, though, that it’s quite out of place in the otherwise thoughtful issue.)
I don’t quite understand the puzzlement. The Parade remark seemed to imply that Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba were somehow superior to the U.S. I don’t see why it’s not an insight to suggest that, perhaps, few people would choose to live in those countries.
On the contrary, “as well as Rwanda, Vietnam and Cuba” works as a rhetorical device precisely *because* those are so often considered (correctly, of course) generally miserable places. It would be no surprise to learn that sexual equity has permeated Sweden’s government — but Vietnam’s?
More generally, I submit that praising one aspect of a country’s social structure does not equal praising the entire country, or even an aspect (here, a country’s entire system of government) that subsumes the first. (I hardly think that Parade magazine, of all things, would propagandize for third-world Communism.)
If Cato were to praise the reforms Pinochet made to Chile’s social-security system, and someone responded by pointing out that Chile under Pinochet was monstrously repressive and violent, would you take him seriously or roll your eyes?
That’s a fair point, but I think that the editor was pointing to the lumping of them those countries with the others. It’s not all that far from what seems to be your take on the issue. The “Gender Equality” of Cuba is really not about equality; men hold the positions of power in that society and allocate some offices to women for window dressing. Mexico and Canada are one thing…but how do non-democracies deserve to be on the list?
I see your point (Rwanda is a democracy, though). I think that whoever sent Parade those statistics was making a point not about the relative desirability of living in those countries but the distance we in the US have to go in overcoming sexism. As you point out, sexual equity doesn’t neatly increase as the proportion of women in government approaches 50%, but at least Parade is broaching a real issue: whether, perhaps, it’d be wise for the US to take some cues–at least some broad cultural ones–from abroad. In contrast, the Policy Report headline echoed in my head as the easy jingoistic retort to any complaint about our society: “If you don’t like it, why don’t you move?”
Wow. Paul Ryan is cute.