Tom Paine on feminism

A superb comment from Tom Paine at The Last Ditch, which perfectly captures my own view:

I have two splendid daughters and no-one can be more feminist (in the proper sense of the word) than I. I oppose all remnants of the dead social attitudes that might impede their progress. But I don't want them degraded by any "positive discrimination" laws that would deny them the sense of achievement I am confident their merits will earn.

This is not about laws, but ideas. The great error of modern leftist thinking is that laws are educational tools. Laws are weapons, not blackboards, and re-education at the point of a gun is seldom effective. If second-rate specimens of any minority group are forced by law into jobs they don't deserve, the resulting resentments are more likely to *generate* hostile attitudes than quell them.