Just when you think you have heard it all, some slug crawls out from under a dung pile and craps on anything you have heard before. This would be the case with former New Hampshire State Senator Jim Rubens who believes that working women are the cause for the increase in mass shootings. Rubens, a Republican, announced his candidacy Wednesday morning to run for U.S. Senate in an attempt to unseat Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen.
Rubens, who describes himself as a “Moderate,” has argued repeatedly that because the economy has become more flexible and has opened up opportunities for women, the response has been detrimental to men and has increased their propensity toward violence.
From his 2008 book, “OverSuccess”:
“The collapsing number of male jobs in the increasingly female-centric economy just adds to the already harsher impact of OverSuccess on males.”
Back in 2009, Rubens continued that thought in his blog post:
“The collaborative, flexible, amorphously-hierarchical American economy is shutting out ordinary men who were once the nation’s breadwinners in living-wage labor and manufacturing jobs. Because status success is more vital to the male psychology, males are falling over the edge in increasing numbers.”
Unbelievably, as Rubens officially announced his candidacy in an interview Wednesday, he cited these same views only two days after yet another mass shooting, this time in our nation’s capital. During the interview reported by Buzzfeed, Rubens went on to assert his belief that women in the workplace increase the risk for men to become violent. Not only was this done while Rubens announced his intent to run for U.S. Senate, but he did it while promoting his own book.
“Men are more sensitive than women to external indicators of status, which is one of the points in my book ? which you might want to read so you can understand the whole point of this ? and it’s very important to all people, women and men, to have jobs, functions, and roles in life that are fulfilling and productive and engaging.”
Rubens goes on to state that it is because of the loss of manufacturing jobs that men often held in favor of “collaborative” jobs that favor women, the result “has increased stress in males.”
“It’s a tiny fraction of males that become stressed for whatever reason and engage in acts of extreme violence. If you look through individual psychology of mass shooters over the past 10-20 years, you can see that in the profile. Often it’s a person who has been subjected to extreme stress in the form of social rejection, job loss and associated mental health issues.”
Rubens said he wants to “tweak” the tax code to add more manufacturing jobs and thus take the “stress” off men. He also used his own ideas to take a stab at his opponent, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, by stating that it was her vote for ObamaCare that added to the mental health problem, and the stress that leads men to violence.
“[ObamaCare] is contributing to a conversion of full-time jobs to part-time jobs. This is causing serious threats to working families. The source of this sudden interest in a post I wrote five years ago, I know where that’s coming from. It’s coming from my opponent, Jeanne Shaheen, who is the cause, personally, as the 60th vote of ObamaCare, of this stress on working families.”
Whatever misguided views he has toward women, Rubens seems to feel threatened over his own statements. Shortly after his interview with Buzzfeed, he deleted his blog posting. However, nothing on the Internet is ever deleted. You can see his complete comments about “evil working women” here.
Oh and then there is this little gem:
“The individual right to keep and bear arms is inviolably guaranteed under both the US and New Hampshire constitutions. If elected, I will vote to defend law-abiding citizens’ right to own and to use firearms for all lawful purposes. While serving in the state Senate, I earned an ‘A’ rating from the NRA.”
Rubens is a very strong opponent of background checks. Those would be the same background checks that actually stopped the shooter in Monday’s mass shooting from buying an AR-15. Really? Women are to blame?
It takes a special kind of “douchieness” to fault women for mass shootings, the loss of jobs to men, the mental health problem of the nation, while demonizing the health care law, attacking your political opponent’s views, promoting your book, endorsing the National Rifle Association, and calling out how well you can handle a gun just so you can eek out those few extra supporters from every last bit of fringe that exists in the political world.
