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Steve Murphy's piehole problem
By adamg on Mon, 05/20/2019 - 9:05am
Yvonne Abraham details what happened when our most august Suffolk County Register of Deeds, Steve Murphy, waded into a Facebook discussion among some local Democratic women activists were having about the need to elect more women to office: Basically, Murphy disagreed, got angrier and angrier, denounced them as part of the reason the country is "fucked right now" and finally bellowed that they need to "shut their pie holes!"
Well! Good to see Murphy isn't just sitting back in retirement at the job he got after losing out in the race to stay on the city council, where he was equally fond of bellowing, but, really, saying stuff like that in 2019 in Massachusetts? On Blue Mass. Group, Mathelman has a suggestion for the proper way for Murphy to apologize, but, well, his no-heavy-lifting term doesn't end until 2024, so we doubt he's going to resign.
Read the exchange for yourself (scroll down through the comments for the screenshots).
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Comments
well well what
exactly is pablum, huh? I read what occurred, and it made me cringe, and it made me glad that it was not me who put my foot in it, in the social sense--not that the complaints of women and minorities don't matter to me, because they do, which probably nobody will believe, since I am not in a rush to wish upon Murphy continued and endless .....flagellations.
something about political discourse of the identity-related type does much to obscure. I am not really sure that we know exactly yet what happens to the human mind cognitively when someone thinks on "identity" but my guess is some subtle form of disintegration proceeds from that for everyone involved. It's only obvious that oppressed groups--which we are not, according to the master of the obvious Boston globe writer, to believe Murphy belongs--
I am assuming he was Terrrrr-iggered by the term "white privilege" not because it ISN'T true, but because he felt acutely what it ALSO actually means, in the present moment, to be alerted to one's white privilege by an other; what it means is: it's clumsy time baby, and I am the author of YOUR story. I'm in YOUR body, in YOUR experience, narrating YOUR life, which is ironic, given the offense toward women that is the anti-abortion issue in the immediate background.
Wasn't this town largely run by a pedophile cult once upon a time? I mean, didn't that happen? That untoward legacy is part of the "privilege" of a lot of whites here.
The article strikes the right chord mostly when it quotes from Murphy's interlocutors who wanted him to show more sympathy due to his public housing roots. That's a legitimate wish; and I wish he had done so as well. My guess is, he has reasons why he knows he is NOT privileged, and had a reaction to terminology that certainly can appear to be an easy answer to everything, ya know like pablum.
Disclaimer: there will be no way to defend myself from anyone who states that doing my best at a nuanced comment detracts from the simple fact that Murphy appeared unsympathetic and that ought to be the beginning and end of the story.
...okay.
Wow.
Judy Pineda Neufeld
If you check out Judy Pineda Neufeld, https://judypneufeld.com/about/ https://emergeamerica.org/
everything is gender based.
She presents herself as part of the problem, not part of the solution.
That being said, Steve should lay off commenting on facebook.
Thanks for the link
I checked her out and I think her work sounds awesome.
Where is the lie in his
Where is the lie in his argument?
Sounds like a normal Internet *discussion*
Shut your pie hole is mild compared to nazi,communist,fascist etc.
I've seen worse on this site almost daily.
All well and good
But highly inappropriate to:
1. barge in and mansplain
2. get angry when you get laughed at for your mansplaining
3. double down on your mansplaining
4. start namecalling, blame women who want to be leaders for the state of the country, etc.
When you are an elected official, this is also known as man-immolation.
How about we expect better from our elected officials?
I know nationally the trend is that decorum, leadership and any kind of concept of public service is at an all time low but we should expect more than a rude tantrum from an elected official in Boston. He doesn't like it, he can retire permanently to Florida like his kindred spirit Lepage did.
This pension padding clown wants to tell women to shut up when their rights are under specific, targeted attacks while the old white guys in leadership in the Democratic party, whether local or nationally, want to talk about having a beer with the guys on the other side? Fuck that and fuck him.
Calm your tits
Politics in a constitutional republic is about compromise. Our system is designed to prevent totalitarian government through checks and balances. It's virtually impossible to get anything done without compromise. You don't like negotiation and compromise? Move to Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, China, etc.
You are a prime example of the kind of person who becomes outraged by 'rudeness' from others. Look in the mirror.
Compromise sounds nice
but it only works when both sides are willing to bargain. When the Republicans are outright saying that they'll never come to the middle, it's not helpful to anyone else for Democrats to go to the right in order to find a new "middle ground".
It would be helpful to see
It would be helpful to see the original, unedited conversation. The Globe directly quotes Murphy but only paraphrases/filters everyone else. Were the other posters being jackassess, too?
No, they weren't
Murphy managed that all by himself. I've posted a link in the original post to screenshots of the discussion.
thanks
Looking at the screeenshots, I see the "fucked right now" language was directed at someone telling him to "calm your tits". It's crass, but in context, I wouldn't call it out of line.
The Globe also cherrypicked a "both sides" quote from Murphy, which is usually done to paint people as apologists. But the Globe pulled it out from this context:
which seems reasonable. Yes, Murphy lost his cool and spoke unprofessionally. But I think it's totally unfair to judge his character without better context.
So the male gender should just STFU?
It's OK for females to endless run their mouths off but God forbid a male not cower in a corner?
The hate directed at the male gender by many females seeking power for themselves is off the hook. Spew barely disguised scorn, contempt, expect to have it thrown back in your face. No matter who and what you are.
Ratchet it down, ladies and gentlemen.
Did you even read?
Did you read ANY of the accounts that Adam linked to?
If so, show me one place where "hate" was directed at "the male gender".
Ratchet it down yourself, MRA.
Found one
"calm your tits"
If a man said that to a woman in a debate, how would you judge him?
Fuck this bullshit
You haven't read the exchange, yet, like Murphy, you blame the women for it.
Murphy may have deleted all his comments, but, of course, on the Internet, nothing ever dies. Judy Neufeld, whose post got Murphy all hot under the collar, even though it had absolutely nothing to do with him, his particular office or Boston, has posted copies as comments under her original post. So judge for yourself who was at fault here (and make a point of looking for the comment in which one woman starts by calling Murphy "an excellent public servant").
ROAR!!!
(I agree 100%)
but man you never get pissed.
With all due respect to Ms. Neufeld, and
as an woman, I am not sure that just by having more women in office, that stuff like this will not happen. There are plenty of pro-life women, IMO, who do not support a woman's right to control their own bodies. And some are and will be placed in leadership positions. It is not so much a male/female thing but an ideal thing.
Without going into a long diatribe, there have been and will be women who are just as nasty as Mr. Drumpf and others. Personally, I would like to see this line of argument, that let us just put more women in office to make everything hunky-dory, to be thought out a bit more by the women who are advocating that this happen.
That being said, Murphy did get a bit hot under the collar but he was frustrated. I can understand his frustration but he probably could of handled it better.
hahahahahahahhaha
oh man, that MRA-style of talk is just precious.
"females" this n' that.
boo hoo, so persecuted.
Every time you see "females" used as a noun
to describe women, it helps if you read the rest of the comment with a Ferengi accent, as the author clearly intended.
You're right!
I can easily see that comment going on to complain about females wearing clothes.
Hmmm...
You sound like you feel threatened. Do you feel threatened?
Reminder that Murphy beat
Reminder that Murphy beat Katie Forde last year most likely because the Register of Deeds race was on the back side of a two-sided ballot that people didn't know to turn over, based on the very high number of blanks in that race.
Why would that have favored
Why would that have favored Murphy?
I don't see any obvious reason for Murphy supporters to be more likely than Forde supporters to check both sides of the ballot.
Easy. Murphy has his base of
Easy. Murphy has his base of older, whiter voters that vote every election and know to check both sides. Forde tried to ride the wave of younger, more diverse voters who don’t regularly vote and wouldn’t know to check. Don’t know if that’s the sole reason she lost but easy to see the negative impact to her.
at my polling place
the Poll Workers made certain that voters knew there were two sides to the ballot.
Some are conscientious, others...?
I love the volunteers at my polling station. It's like a religion with them: EVERYBODY OUGHTA VOTE, dammit, and they're gonna make sure you do it right. But are all the volunteers like that?
I've seen enough information go missing because of bad form design that I know it has significant effects. It shouldn't depend on a human telling other humans how not to get tricked by the form.
I am so very tired of
I am so very tired of UNIVERSAL HUB printing the 'f word.'
What's crazy is that
there are literally millions of other websites for you to read.
Published not printed.
Published not printed.
Just sayin'.
Why an elected position?
If you accept the premise that the purpose of elections is to have a government that represents the people and whose policies represent the peiple's will...
And you accept that Register of Deeds is a purely administrative job with no policy making authority....
... Then what possible argument is there for it being an elected position?
I'm just surprised
I'm just surprised that Blue Mass Group still exists...
Have you ever seen the show?
Very entertaining. Especially the finale when everyone throws all the toilet paper at each other.
It’s crazy
I mean, why would Murphy get all hot under the collar by the claim that there are too many men in elected office? I mean, it’s not like someone came gunning for his job last year making essentially the same argument, but applying it to Murphy personally.
Oh, wait, that did happen.
Murphy did shoot himself in the foot, but that’s par for the course in his 25 years of seeking elected office, but it didn’t come from nowhere.
Also, to the root of the Facebook post, which gender is the Governor of Alabama again?
Nobody is saying
Nobody* is saying the world would be a better place if more women were in charge. Just this: We. Want.A.Damn.Share of power in line with our numbers. Not just an occasional governor or head of state. But half of everything.
*Well somebody is saying that, probably, but not in this context
Technically
Each voter’s vote is equal to every other voter, so any woman who votes in an election I, a man, vote in has equal power to me. That’s how democracy works.