# Phyllis Schlafly dead at 92 - Does anybody care? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 5, 2016, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155 "2016-09-05T23:58:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/161 "2016-09-09T04:52:57Z")
Individual liberals are scorning Schlafly. Individual conservatives scorned Kennedy. Hence neither liberalism or conservatism is any guarantee than an individual will withhold scorn. I’m unclear on what Bricker’s original point was, if any. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/162 "2016-09-09T05:11:54Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Individual liberals are scorning Schlafly. Individual conservatives scorned Kennedy. Hence neither liberalism or conservatism is any guarantee than an individual will withhold scorn. > > I’m unclear on what Bricker’s original point was, if any. Individuals liberals praised Kennedy. Individual conservatives praised Kennedy. Individual conservatives praised Schlafly. Where are the individual liberals who praised Schlafly? The Kennedy thread did have a small number of conservatives who posted hateful commentary. But it also had prominent board conservatives who spoke well of Kennedy. I’m arguing that the latter analogous position can’t be found here in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/163 "2016-09-09T05:18:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Not to hijack, but this critique is not a reasonable one. > > Dike Bridge was an unlit wooden bridge extending at an angle from an unlit dirt road. The bridge had no guardrail. > > You cannot, then, say that only a drunk would possibly have had such an accident. There was no evidence that Kennedy was drunk. I grant you that there was ample evidence of skirt-chasing, but that’s not the subject here. > > Nor did he do everything he could do: he entered a plea of guilty to the charge of leaving the scene of an accident. That was the crime he committed. > > His support for a liberal agenda does not make him guilty of any crimes. Well, to be fair I didn’t say only a drunk could have had such an accident. And the question of whether Kennedy was drunk or not is a matter of speculation, I’ll grant, since the authorities weren’t notified until 9 hours after the accident. However it’s hard to imagine he had been at a party with 12 married men and 12 single girls and managed to leave free from the influence of alcohol. And I disagree that his continued skirt-chasing throughout his career are outside the subject of the thread. What we’ve been discussing currently is whether someone’s history and behavior qualifies them to be called assholes. In that regard Kennedy’s behavior with women contributes in my opinion to an overall history of assholishness despite his unquestionable service in the Senate. Had he been a powerful Republican and word gotten out about his behavior I have no doubt he’d have been excoriated as a misogynist and sexual predator. But he was given a pass in the same way as Bill Clinton. Apparently it pays to be a Democrat if you’re going to engage in lifelong horndogism while holding down a powerful position in the government. But I digress. To get back to Chappaquiddick, here are a few entries from the Wiki article on the incident that give the chronology of events: > [@](#): > > Kennedy claimed at the inquest that he called Kopechne’s name several times from the shore, then tried to swim down to reach her seven or eight times, then rested on the bank for around fifteen minutes before returning on foot to Lawrence Cottage, where the party attended by Kopechne and the other “Boiler Room Girls” had occurred. Kennedy denied seeing any house with a light on during his journey back to Lawrence Cottage.[12] > “Dike House” along Dike Road > In addition to the working telephone at the Lawrence Cottage, according to one commentator, his route back to the cottage would have taken him past four houses from which he could have telephoned and summoned help; however, he did not do so.[13] The first of those houses, referred to as “Dike House”, was 150 yards away from the bridge, and was occupied by Sylvia Malm and her family at the time of the incident. Malm stated later that she had left a light on at the residence when she retired that evening. > [@](#): > > According to Kennedy’s testimony, Gargan and party co-host Paul Markham then returned to the waterway with Kennedy to try to rescue Kopechne. > \ > Gargan and Markam would testify that they assumed that Kennedy was going to inform the authorities once he got back to Edgartown, and thus did not do so themselves. > [@](#): > > According to his own testimony, Kennedy swam across the 500-foot (150 m) channel, back to Edgartown and returned to his hotel room, where he removed his clothes and collapsed on his bed.[17] Hearing noises, he later put on dry clothes and asked someone what the time was: it was something like 2:30 a.m., the senator recalled. He testified that, as the night went on, “I almost tossed and turned and walked around that room … I had not given up hope all night long that, by some miracle, Mary Jo would have escaped from the car.”[18] And yet… > [@](#): > > Back at his hotel, **Kennedy complained at 2:55 a.m. to the hotel owner that he had been awoken by a noisy party.** [6] By 7:30 a.m. the next morning **he was talking “casually” to the winner of the previous day’s sailing race, with no indication that anything was amiss.** [bolding mine] > [@](#): > > At 8 a.m., Gargan and Markham joined Kennedy at his hotel where they had a “heated conversation.” According to Kennedy’s testimony, the two men asked why he had not reported the crash. Kennedy responded by telling them “about my own thoughts and feelings as I swam across that channel … that somehow when they arrived in the morning that they were going to say that Mary Jo was still alive”.[18] The three men subsequently crossed back to Chappaquiddick Island on the ferry, where Kennedy made a series of telephone calls from a pay telephone near the crossing. The telephone calls were to his friends for advice and again, he did not report the crash to authorities. [Cite](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chappaquiddick_incident) His behavior that night and the next morning seemed overwhelmingly callous, self-centered and self-concerned, and demonstrated very little regard for Mary Jo Kopechne or her fate. We, like the authorities and everyone else who knew the players, are left to speculate as to what really happened as due to his behavior following the incident nothing could be proven. It’s true that his service to the country is admirable, I’ll admit. But how much of it was driven either by guilt over what happened to Mary Jo Kopechne and a desire to get himself straight with his family, social set and the country at large? In my opinion his behavior in regard to Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, combined with his personal proclivity to chase women behind the scenes while putting up a respectable front as the “Lion of the Senate” all qualify him for the “asshole” appellation. And yet few of the board’s conservative posters stooped to calling him sick and twisted and/or offered the hope that he suffered from his disease and was burning in hell for all eternity, such as Phyllis Schlafly has come in for merely as a result of her having taken a right wing stance on a constitutional amendment. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/164 "2016-09-09T05:36:12Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Individuals liberals praised Kennedy. Individual conservatives praised Kennedy. > > Individual conservatives praised Schlafly. Where are the individual liberals who praised Schlafly? No, that wasn’t your original point. > [@](#): > > The Kennedy thread did have a small number of conservatives who posted hateful commentary. But it also had prominent board conservatives who spoke well of Kennedy. I’m arguing that the latter analogous position can’t be found here in this thread. Assuming this is your _new_ point, what’s the point of your point? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/165 "2016-09-09T05:53:41Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > No, that wasn’t your original point. Yes, it was. > [@](#): > > Assuming this is your _new_ point, what’s the point of your point? That the board’s liberals are more uniformly comfortable with hateful vitriol directed at dead political opponents than the board’s conservatives are. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/166 "2016-09-09T05:54:20Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yet you were willing to post the Ted Kennedy example when you thought it would help the position you liked. > > So it seems to me you’ve decided not to give a shit after learning your view was untenable. How much better it would be if you had the integrity to acknowledge your error instead of retreating behind a claim of indifference. What “position I liked”? You asked and I was like, “well, I think Ted Kennedy”. Christ, that was seven years ago – I don’t keep track of that shit. (I think there WAS one dude who started multiple threads about Kopechne and ended up banned for it) You want to know the position I like? My position is that the whole “liberals/conservatives ALWAYS do such and such” is a bunch of bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/167 "2016-09-09T06:04:38Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Yes, it was. > That the board’s liberals are more uniformly comfortable with hateful vitriol directed at dead political opponents than the board’s conservatives are. Ha! Then you admit it was about liberal hypocrisy after all. Checkmate. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/168 "2016-09-09T06:11:08Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > What you said was that she lied and that being a liar made her an asshole. I asked you for a cite as to her lies and you responded by saying she made claims about what the consequences of the ERA that weren’t in its text. Based upon this, and despite the fact that you have no idea whether she was sincere in making her claims or not, you declared her to be a liar and therefore an asshole. All of this is true. What is not true is what you said in the post I rejected: “. . . Now you defining someone as an asshole for no reason other than they were on the opposite side from you politically . . .” That is not the same as calling someone an asshole for being an arrant liar. You made a mistake in accusing me of the wrong thing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/169 "2016-09-09T06:12:12Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > . . . OK, I will call her an asshole, just on general principle. She would still make a better leader than old fuckwit, though. I’ll buy that. That’s a much better answer than I would have given. Thank you! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/170 "2016-09-09T06:27:47Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Individuals liberals praised Kennedy. Individual conservatives praised Kennedy. > > Individual conservatives praised Schlafly. Where are the individual liberals who praised Schlafly? > > The Kennedy thread did have a small number of conservatives who posted hateful commentary. But it also had prominent board conservatives who spoke well of Kennedy. I’m arguing that the latter analogous position can’t be found here in this thread. Please inform us of something she said or did that was especially praiseworthy. I mean, something of such value that it eclipses her assholery. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/171 "2016-09-09T06:58:14Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > All of this is true. What is not true is what you said in the post I rejected: “. . . Now you defining someone as an asshole for no reason other than they were on the opposite side from you politically . . .” > > That is not the same as calling someone an asshole for being an arrant liar. You made a mistake in accusing me of the wrong thing. Hardly. The reason you condemned her for ‘lying’ about the ERA is because she was on the other side from you politically on the issue. You had (and have) no proof she lied, you just don’t like what she said because she was on the other side of the issue politically. So you decided, based solely on your opposition to what she said, that she was lying and therefore an asshole. There is simply no reason for you to presume that she was lying other than your disdain for her politics on the issue. Therefore you have defined her as a liar and asshole for no substantive reason other than you didn’t agree with her politically. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/172 "2016-09-09T07:56:06Z")
I could buy that Schlafly sincerely believed that women should have a lower status. That would make her dumb, but not deceptive. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/173 "2016-09-09T08:36:49Z")
Schlafly felt, like many men and women of the era did, that women held a privileged status and she didn’t want to see it eroded. There were plenty of women then who were happy to let the man do all the work, deal with bosses and customers and be saddled with the responsibility of providing for the whole family while they stayed at home, watched soap operas and visited with their neighborhood’s other stay-at-home housewives. Plus women invariably got the house and the car and most of the money in a divorce, not to mention the kids…even if the reason for the divorce was hers. Everywhere they went men held doors for them and changed tires for them and stood when they entered a room and pulled out chairs for them in restaurants. “Ladies first” was the order of the day. And they didn’t have to worry about getting drafted and sent off to war like the men did. There’s been a lot of nonsense about that time promulgated by the left as to how women couldn’t have their own checking accounts and how women had to slave their days away doing housework while all the men breezed through their days at work, taking three-hour, three-Martini lunches and having everything in life configured to suit them. It’s all nonsense of course but that’s how lefties always go about creating social change. It’s hard to get them burning their bras without first making villains of the men. This isn’t to say the advances in women’s rights and job opportunities aren’t better now because they most definitely are. There are many women in my family and among my friends who have really good jobs they wouldn’t have been able to get in Schlafly’s era and I’m very happy about that. Generally I don’t begrudge most of the aims of liberals in these types of social change. What I object to is the dishonesty and the pitting of one side against the other in order to bring them about. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/174 "2016-09-09T08:37:28Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And SMDB liberals? And how about SMBD liberals? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/175 "2016-09-09T09:01:17Z")
You mean “Why do SDMB liberals answer a question with a question?”. Well, why shouldn’t an SDMB liberal answer a question with a question? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/176 "2016-09-09T09:04:53Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think this makes sense. > > And SMDB liberals? We encompass all types. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/177 "2016-09-09T09:07:17Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > That the board’s liberals are more uniformly comfortable with hateful vitriol directed at dead political opponents than the board’s conservatives are. Paint with a broad brush, doncha? ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/178 "2016-09-09T09:15:18Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > In my opinion conservatives in the main are simply more well-mannered and less inclined to aggressively twist off in support of their beliefs than are liberals. They’re also more accepting of the concept that others might legitimately have a different viewpoint, rather than automatically attributing those views to some intolerable form of stupidity or evil. I’m not surprised you feel this way - most conservatives probably believe conservatives are nice and better people, and most liberal probably believe liberals are nicer and better people. From my time in the Navy and after, I find that conservatives are no more open or well mannered than liberals, or vice versa. And I find conservatives just as likely to believe the other side is evil as conservatives. > [@](#): > > When have you ever heard of conservative students taking over and occupying college administration buildings, or attempting to shut down opposition speakers at colleges around the country, or trying to bully people into using only certain words and arrogantly and aggressively attacking them when they don’t? When have you heard of liberals trying to get satanic displays removed from public property next to Christian displays? Or removing books from the library for talking about sex or homosexuality? Or trying to remove talk of slavery from textbooks? My point is that both sides have anti free speech extremists. Or for non free speech related examples, when did a liberal ever try and block a school doorway to prevent black children from integrating? When did a liberal sheriff ever sick dogs and open fire hoses on a crowd of peaceful black protesters? Most conservatives hopefully think these are very wrong, and most liberals probably think your examples are wrong as well. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/179 "2016-09-09T09:19:52Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Schlafly felt, like many men and women of the era did, that women held a privileged status and she didn’t want to see it eroded. > > There were plenty of women then who were happy to let the man do all the work, deal with bosses and customers and be saddled with the responsibility of providing for the whole family while they stayed at home, watched soap operas and visited with their neighborhood’s other stay-at-home housewives. Plus women invariably got the house and the car and most of the money in a divorce, not to mention the kids…even if the reason for the divorce was hers. Everywhere they went men held doors for them and changed tires for them and stood when they entered a room and pulled out chairs for them in restaurants. “Ladies first” was the order of the day. And they didn’t have to worry about getting drafted and sent off to war like the men did. > > There’s been a lot of nonsense about that time promulgated by the left as to how women couldn’t have their own checking accounts and how women had to slave their days away doing housework while all the men breezed through their days at work, taking three-hour, three-Martini lunches and having everything in life configured to suit them. > > It’s all nonsense of course but that’s how lefties always go about creating social change. It’s hard to get them burning their bras without first making villains of the men. > > This isn’t to say the advances in women’s rights and job opportunities aren’t better now because they most definitely are. There are many women in my family and among my friends who have really good jobs they wouldn’t have been able to get in Schlafly’s era and I’m very happy about that. Generally I don’t begrudge most of the aims of liberals in these types of social change. What I object to is the dishonesty and the pitting of one side against the other in order to bring them about. Yes, it’s terrible when people grossly misrepresent their opponents’ views and actions just to promote their own personal agendas. I hate it when people do that. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2016, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155/180 "2016-09-09T10:45:42Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > There were plenty of women then who were happy to let the man do all the work, deal with bosses and customers and be saddled with the responsibility of providing for the whole family while they stayed at home, watched soap operas and visited with their neighborhood’s other stay-at-home housewives. Plus women invariably got the house and the car and most of the money in a divorce, not to mention the kids…even if the reason for the divorce was hers. The Fifties were such a wonderful time, before the Women’s Libbers came in, weren’t they? 😉 Whose memories are you drawing on for this? TV Land? > [@](#): > > There’s been a lot of nonsense about that time promulgated by the left as to how women couldn’t have their own checking accounts and how women had to slave their days away doing housework while all the men breezed through their days at work, taking three-hour, three-Martini lunches and having everything in life configured to suit them. > > It’s all nonsense of course The checking account stuff is true. The rest is of a piece with your own fond, er, assessment right above. > [@](#): > > What I object to is the dishonesty and the pitting of one side against the other in order to bring them about. If you have a better idea, you need to state it. At the time it would help. But it’s more fun this way, isn’t it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/phyllis-schlafly-dead-at-92-does-anybody-care/765155.md?page=10)