This is beyond frightening. Remember it the next time some leftist talks about the “war against science” from the “right.”
59 thoughts on “The Truths That May Not Be Uttered”
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This is beyond frightening. Remember it the next time some leftist talks about the “war against science” from the “right.”
Comments are closed.
I found out the truth of this the hard way. I’ll just say this: if you work in the entertainment business, you’d better keep your opposition to “gay marriage” a deep, dark secret. If it gets out that you are not on board with the idea, you will find yourself suddenly without work and with few friends. I have since changed industries and found new friends, but I will never forget the viciousness with which my former friends displayed their tolerance and open-mindedness to all points of view.
And God help you if you even suggest that federal civil rights legislation hasn’t worked out well.
What? You expect tolerance for being intolerant?
Suppose instead of gay marriage you were opposed to “mixed race” marriage. Would you expect tolerance then?
I’m serious, that’s how many people see being opposed to gay marriage.
The simple problem here is one that I see in the space community all the time.. people who are unwilling or unable to seek out and understand an opposing point of view. It seems too many people these days think there’s such a thing as “truth” and that they possess it. Well, I’m sorry, but outside the strict confines of pure mathematics there is no such thing, it’s all just opinion. If you want others to hold your opinion you have to convince them.. and if you’re not even willing to listen to their point of view then how can you ever hope to do that?
@Trent Waddington: Suppose instead of gay marriage you were opposed to “mixed race” marriage. Would you expect tolerance then?
Yes.
The time for reasoned discourse is past in America. People have solidified into ideological hardpoints and no amount of rhetorical ammunition can blast them out. From now on, it’s Might Makes Right.
PS – Papa Gödel say: Even mathematical truth ≠ Truth.
Is it just broadening the meaning of marriage or is it mocking of it? Before answering, consider that many allow that people have the right to choose their partners while still considering redefinition of the term to be a mockery of it.
I also meant to respond regarding the “bond between men and women” is natural and runs deep.
That this is in the least controversial suggests Orwell was timid.
So as gay’s continue to commit suicide at higher rates; what we should do is ignore any
researchdiscussionthought into what may account for that; less we offend gay’s seeking marriage.Oh, wait; it’s ok if the study says the suicide rates occurs because increased conservatism.
I’ll just take this opportunity to remind everyone that the original post has nothing to do with same-sex marriage or about homosexuality in general. There’s some thread drift happening here.
NTTAWWT.
“Incoherent jumble” would sum your post up nicely, Leland. No small feat for two sentences.
I wonder what YOU suppose causes increased suicide rates among gay youth? Certainly not the dehumanizing anti-gay culture in large swaths of middle America, or verbal harassment at the hands of peers due to the same?
I dunno, I read the article and can’t see what is controversial about it in the least. And I’m a woman! I will tell you that I do think the study sounds incomplete. Other factors might account for the less-depressed state of the women who had unprotected sex. Those women might either have been having sex with men they were sure they were going to marry, so they didn’t think they needed condoms, as opposed to the more careful condom-using women who were hooking up with guys whose affections they weren’t sure of (almost invariably a barrier to complete happiness for a female). Or the non-condom-using women might simply have been ninnies; idiots are always happier. (Have you met an unhappy dumbass? I never have.)
Another thing: condoms aren’t exactly a barrier to semen-exposure. You know those things break and leak.
As for gay marriage — no one is stopping gays from getting married any time they want. And no, not as the wags have it — “to members of the opposite sex.” Gays can and do get married to each other all the time. They set up house together, call themselves “husband” and “wife,” and everyone in their circle knows they are married. All gays can’t do is put their marriages under state control. Yeah. When you say it that way, it sort of changes things, doesn’t it? Hell, gays have it sweet nowadays. Why would they try to fuck it up with getting the government in on it? I don’t get that.
The problem is the rights that federal marriage laws bestow on couples. Things like inheritance and hospital visitation rights…not to mention the ability to file your taxes as “married, filing jointly.” There are all sorts of little things like that that straight couples take for granted.
I can understand religious institutions not wanting to perform gay marriage ceremonies….that’s their right. But there should be no prohibition on gay couples getting a marriage certificate from their municipal building, just like any straight, non-religious couple can.
I will tell you that I do think the study sounds incomplete.
I agree. I only read the abstract, but it seems to me if they didn’t control for oral contraceptive use that alone throws a giant variable into it.
not to mention the ability to file your taxes as “married, filing jointly.”
Given that the marriage penalty has been a fact of life in our tax code for almost the entire duration of my marriage, the ability to file “married, filing jointly” hasn’t always been an advantage. The penalty was pretty well eliminated in the 2001 tax package but there’s a good chance it’ll be back.
Which is why those laws must be abolished.
(Incidentally, there are no “federal marriage laws”. There are various laws, e.g., the tax code, that mete out differential treatment according to marital status. That status, however, is conferred according to state law.)
The whole “control of the state” thing flies right over Ethan’s pointy head. Just admit it, Ethan, you love Big Brother.
:sigh:
So you’d argue that it’s okay for lifelong, committed gay couples to be denied the ability to visit one another in the hospital, should one partner become seriously ill? I don’t want to get into an argument about what should or should not be included in marriage laws, I just mean to defend the right of gay couples to be equal to heterosexual couples.
And you’re right…marriage laws are decided at the state level, with the exception of the tax code, and DOMA. Which is, from a states’ rights perspective, rather obviously unconstitutional.
Okay guys, let’s not get distracted by the gay marriage debate. Focus. The problem here is that a surgeon has been ostracized from a strictly professional practice for holding views some of his colleagues don’t like. This is censorship of the worst kind, because it is being imposed by civil society on itself. (Or, at least, non-governmental society; it doesn’t seem to be very civil these days) We can’t even get a District Court to overturn this sort of decision, because the 1st Amendment doesn’t protect you (much) from non-government bodies.
This sort of thing is incredibly harmful to society. I have felt this censorship personally (we all have) in the workplace, because there’s such a narrow list of alllowed opinions before you get a call from HR. I have felt this pressure socially because people have come to define themselves, and their social circles, by political party. I actually was told by someone I went to school with for eight years, went to the same church as, and was in Boy Scouts with me (I taught him how to sharpen a knife safely, and how to prep a one-match campfire) “I can’t possibly be friends with someone who voted for Bush.” And we’ve never spoken since (his choice).
This is what the Left has done to America (among other social atrocities). Censorship; dividing society by party lines; making it impossible for “both sides” of a political argument (as if there’s only two sides to each issue; and everyone on each side agrees on all points) to work together at Church or the office.
This is the part that Orwell did not forsee. It’s not the government that has done this to us; it is our neighbors.
“We’re divided along party lines in our private lives now….AND IT’S ALL THE LEFT’S FAULT.”
Does the irony of this statement escape you?
:polishes pointy head, waits for big brother to decide what he wants for dinner:
I wonder what YOU suppose causes increased suicide rates among gay youth?
Ethan (and McGehee); did either of you read Dr. Greenfield’s article? I admit, like Andrea, I didn’t see much there to be offended. I guess I could assume the offense was the last sentence, but the blogger said it began with the last two paragraphs. So I assume the following was the issue:
The benefits of semen contact also were seen in fewer suicide attempts and better performance on cognition tests.
So that’s the suicide angle. But this was preceeded by:
It’s been known since the 1990s that heterosexual women living together synchronize their menstrual cycles because of pheromones, but when a study of lesbians showed that they do not synchronize, the researchers suspected that semen played a role.
And the doctor concluded: So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected
Beyond that, I agree with Brock, the censorship is more of the story. However, I’m glad Ethan came around to give evidence of the source for censorship. Nice.
So you’re saying the suicide rates among gay youth would lessen if they could all just get laid? 😛
I’m opposed to censorship of all forms…I’m a huge advocate for net neutrality and the preservation of the ability to be anonymous in online forums. Disagreement does not have to equal vilification and censorship.
Nice strawman there Ethan, nobody but you said that. Do you see the irony?
A strawman? Where? This is what he said:
“This is what the Left has done to America (among other social atrocities). Censorship; dividing society by party lines; making it impossible for “both sides” of a political argument (as if there’s only two sides to each issue; and everyone on each side agrees on all points) to work together at Church or the office.”
Where did I distort or misrepresent that statement?
About that gays-can’t-visit-each-other-in-the-hospital thing. How true is that still? This is 2011, not 1981. Hey, speaking of the AIDS-ridden Eighties, didn’t the movies Philadelphia and Longtime Companion feature a lot of scenes of gay friends and lovers visiting each other in hospitals? Well true, those are movies, which as we all know are totally fantasy, not based at all on any real life situations. But seriously, are you saying that only married people or their kin can visit each other in the hospital? What about people with no family at all? Are they shit out of luck? Are they not allowed friends as visitors? What if an orphan with no relatives is hit by a car and is in intensive care? Is his lawyer only allowed to talk to him on the phone?
I’ll tell you what I think. I think that with the possible exception of hospitals run by super-conservative religious institutions (if such exist) that this whole “gay couples can’t visit each other in the hospital” thing hasn’t been true since the 70s, if it ever was.
Google “denied hospital visitation,” in quotation marks, to answer your own question.
The story of the woman who wasn’t allowed to visit her dying partner in 2007, as well as the 2010/2011 rule requiring federally funded hospitals to respect patient-specified visitation lists, are just a Google query away.
The problem’s even more striking if, say, the ill partner is incapacitated, and his or her surviving partner is denied the right to make decisions in the absence of a living will. There are numerous instances of this, and they’re documented freely online as well.
My wife and I visit friends that are hospitalized all the time with no pushback from anyone in administration.
Maybe living in a rural area of a red state we are simply not as sophisiticated as our blue state betters.
Or maybe my wife and I simply are unaware that there are a whole set of different rules for gay people in hospitals. I guess I will find out the next time a gay friend has a hospital stay.
It’s up to the whims of the hospital staff. Sometimes there’s no problem; other times there are big problems.
And that….is the problem. There should never be any question whether or not a partner has visitation rights, and is considered next-of-kin.
Have you met an unhappy dumbass?
Yeah, they spend a lot of time in jail so you might have missed them.
@Ethan: There should never be any question whether or not a partner has visitation rights, and is considered next-of-kin
***
Ah, the certainty of the infallible. Ethanus locuta est, causa finita est.
….Are you suggesting there SHOULD be questions about whether or not someone’s long-term partner has those rights?
You learned the definition of “irony” from Alanis Morissette, didn’t you? There’s nothing even theoretically ironic about my statement.
Your statement assumes that for society to be divided, all parties (who stand divided) must be equally culpable. This is false. The division of American society today isn’t the fault of conservatives any more than the racial division in 19th century America was the fault of black folks. Division and discrimination can be enforced unilaterally by one side, and that’s exactly what the Left has done.
Poltical correctness wasn’t a conservative idea. It was a Leftist idea; pushed by the Left and enforced by the Left. It is the tool used by the Left to stifle opions deemed wrongthink.
Well, now we know how Mr. Lewis learned this lesson:
Again, I maintain that Thoughtcrime is a bitch: the problem of who has the moral authority to regulate it remains unsolved.
You attribute our division to some imaginary monolithic Left…and then follow it immediately with “as if there’s only two sides to each issue; and everyone on each side agrees on all points.”
That’s genuine irony right there, not ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife.
There should never be any question whether or not a partner has visitation rights, and is considered next-of-kin.
Perhaps you should read up on the HIPPA laws sponsored by Senator Kennedy and signed by President Clinton, but we digress.
It really is awesome that Ethan comes here to prove the point made in the original post Rand linked. It doesn’t matter that none of us really have any political issue about gays or gay marriage. What matters is we dare talk about some of the natural issues, and he goes into adhominem attack mode on political issues.
I’m opposed to censorship of all forms
Apparently that’s not true as you wish it to be, case in point:
I’m a huge advocate for net neutrality
Net neutrality is like HIPPA. It’s sold as a great thing that will keep corporations from controlling content. Net neutrality just gives the government control over what is and is not acceptable content and who controls that content. Since the FCC enacted the rules late last year; what we have seen recently is the government banning websites because of content.
HIPPA was sold as protecting patient rights. What it did is make hospitals responsible for any inadvertent release of medical records; such that they now are required by law to impose limitations on who has access to patients and patient information. Its why hospitals don’t allow anybody but (clearly defined federal law) next-of-kin access to patients or until the patient signs a release. Not that HIPPA was any barrier to leftists. Hillary still tried to get access to her opponents medical records. But probably more infamous was the way Vegans found a loophole to get Dr. Atkin’s personal medical records.
I agree with you, Brock, that there are many more than two sides to any issue. I just don’t see how you can see that, and not see that it’s therefore ridiculous to blame anything on “the Left.” By doing that you’re promoting the same division that you’re decrying. Hence…irony.
“Net neutrality is like HIPPA. It’s sold as a great thing that will keep corporations from controlling content. Net neutrality just gives the government control over what is and is not acceptable content and who controls that content. Since the FCC enacted the rules late last year; what we have seen recently is the government banning websites because of content.”
Cite examples, please, because that sounds patently ridiculous to me. The only things the government bans due to content are things like child pornography…which were rightly banned long before the FCC’s rules were adopted.
All Net Neutrality means is this: Netflix streaming content would receive no preferential treatment by an ISP over, say, Rand’s blog posts.
And ad hominem attack mode? I believe the only thing I’ve said that could even be remotely construed as an attack was when I told Brock he probably failed to see the irony in his own post.
Net neutrality as a power grab by the FCC to control content sounds to me like FEMA being the shadow government in the X-Files movie. It sounds good, but…you’re probably giving them too much credit.
Oh look, black helicopters in whisper mode… every organization is a shadow government. Government is just people meddling in other peoples lives. That occurs from top to bottom and very much at the local level.
Is it an organized effort? What’s organized?
I don’t think all government can be dismissed as “people meddling.” In many cases it serves the vital function of protecting us from one another.
This is however, I realize, the real root of our disagreement: the role of government.
The only things the government bans due to content are things like child pornography…
Wow, I don’t even need to search archives to find an example, here is one from Friday. Now one might point out that this was the DOJ (which is part of the government) and not the FCC, but that’s just the example from last week. Not long before were efforts to block piracy websites, again more of a legal issue than net neutrality, but the blocks occurred prior to any prosecution. But more closer to the purpose of net neutrality, there are several discussions of the US government shutting down websites during a possible pandemic for the same exact purposes of QoS.
If you need more information, how about you using the examples I provided and doing your own research. Maybe that will activity will give you time to cool off.
All Net Neutrality means is this: Netflix streaming content would receive no preferential treatment by an ISP over, say, Rand’s blog posts.
That’s what it means to you. That’s not what it means to politicians.
And ad hominem attack mode? I believe the only thing I’ve said that could even be remotely construed as an attack was when I told Brock he probably failed to see the irony in his own post.
Oh yes, and you follow this post immediately with:
Net neutrality as a power grab by the FCC to control content sounds to me like FEMA being the shadow government in the X-Files movie. It sounds good, but…you’re probably giving them too much credit.
As I said, thanks for posting here to prove that people like you really do exist, and the rest of us are not making you up.
“People like you?” That’s actually ad hominem. Comparing that description of the FCC to the X Files movie’s portrayal of FEMA is…just a comparison. I haven’t made a single personal attack, baseless or otherwise.
And I don’t need to cool off, as I’m already pretty cooled. These discussions don’t get me angry, even the ones where I’m called a pinhead and accused of loving Big Brother…when nothing could be further from the truth. I’m just…not an extremist. I don’t represent your ideological opposite, I’m sorry to disappoint you. You’ll have to keep looking.
Not to drag out this red herring any further, but Leland brings up a good point – that regulation of speech is equivalent to prior restraint and an end-run around due process.
Ethan,
Many people self-identify as “the Left.” (And I bet you’re one of them; or would be in any “friendly” forum like DailyKos or Brad DeLong’s comment section) They put themselves in that bucket, and proudly raise the flag. I merely recognize them and call them by their own appelation.
There is no “irony”, nor anything even remotely false, in recongizing that while there are many factions and points of view in America today, “the Left” is one of them. And it’s an evil one bent on controlling the thoughts, actions and lives of everyone in America with all of the the powers available to it – including government force and social (attempt at) shaming. They call it “fairness”, but I call it slavery.
Your Leftist arguments have no power here. We’ve heard them all before, and found them wanting.
—
P.S. The net neutrality debate is just as distracting as the gay marriage debate.
I don’t identify with any left, and I don’t like the DailyKos. I don’t even know who Brad DeLong is.
I’m not bent on controlling anything anyone says. And I’m certainly not EVIL, although your mileage may vary on that very vague point. I’m a staunch atheist, which is enough to get me branded evil in some circles.
And honestly…I haven’t even had time to make any arguments. I’ve just been playing whack-a-mole with a bunch of bizarre assertion and baseless attacks.
I’m actually in favor of a smaller, more accountable government.
As I’ve said before: The only reason I even know this place exists is because of my interest in the space program, and Rand’s posts in that arena are largely excellent. I’m not some communist come out of the ooze to troll you.
Yeh, what the Hell, how did this become a thread about gay marriage?
The original poster meant well by giving a personal example, but that sent the whole thread off is a stupid direction.
Taking you at your word, why jump in with all the off-topic posting distracting the thread from the main point? So you’re (apparently) in favor of gay marriage – it’s not germaine. In this sort of forum (where folks like Bob-1 often jump in with the standard Lefty talking points) it’s easy to get mistaken for a “general opponent” unless you clearly identify as otherwise.
Posting something like “I generally agree that linked article being bad; but this point on gay marriage seems off base” would probably be advisable.
And if you identify as an atheist-libertarian, why do you find it hard to believe that other people identify as Left? Can I not make comments about “atheists”, which may or may not apply to you? Or libertarians? Those are groups and factions within the American polity; and so are Lefties. It’s perfectly fair to ascribe to a faction the actions of that faction.
Ethan,
Here’s a fun fact. The actions of the Left are the reason I am no longer a libertarian (and I was never a Libertarian). I realized that people are often awful to each other for “irrational” reasons, and not just when they are in government. Private actors like University admission boards are just as X-ist today as they were 100 years ago – they just discriminate based on different criteria. Instead of race it’s now political beliefs.
Government is the power of last resort; the monopoly power of violence. For that reason it must be used sparingly and wisely. But it must be used – to prevent private actors with private power from abusing that power to push their own agenda. Stated that way you might say this is a view you hold as well; but I don’t think it works well with the actualy libtertarian forms of government pushed for by the Libertarian party.