Politics is Stupid

general
24

I kind of watered down the argument a bit, but there’s a fundamental difference between your bike helmet scenario and the Eich scenario: Your bike helmet scenario is based on a safety issue. Advocating for and donating to a law that would mandate bike helmets has a logical reasoning behind it. To some people, yes, you may be viewed as a tyrant for trying to step on their freedoms to not wear a helmet, however (I’m assuming) you’re approaching it from the point of view of “bike helmets reduce major injuries.”

Advocating for and donating to a law that opposes gay marriage has no basis like that, only the “My holy book says it’s wrong/I think it’s icky” part, which fundamentally means that “I think these people are lesser human beings and don’t deserve the same rights and freedoms as us ‘normal people’”. That’s what got people so riled up, that he donated to one of these causes that would basically label an entire group of people as “not people”.

If your bike helmet argument was based on something similar, like “My holy book says you can’t ride a bike without a helmet because God/Satan/The alien on my shoulder says so”, and no other reason, you would be no better, because you’d be simply trying to impose your religious views on others who may or may not believe what you do, which is wrong.

25

How about an argument that says that marriage is something that was created to make the transfer of wealth from generation to generation easier, and that the trappings of spousal support and alimony and death benefits have outlived their usefulness?

There are other reasons to oppose gay marriage other than intolerance and religion. Hell, plenty of people oppose any marriage. The same group of people pushing for gay marriage, are the people saying marriage is useless.

This gets muddy real quick. Isn’t taking a counter position to this trying to impose your religious views on them? By your moral standards it’s wrong, but what if drowning puppies was ok by someone’s standards? When PETA comes by are they going to tell them to keep their beliefs out of their morals? Or when the local KoC wants to have a fundraiser to stop them, are their religious beliefs infringing on their rights to drown puppies? Animals have no rights, laws set to protect them are based in morality as agreed on at the time by the majority.

Someone’s concern for my safety, or public safety, is just as bad a reason to restrict my rights as anything else. Requiring bike helmets, or health insurance, or marriage rights are all decisions made by individuals based on their personal beliefs. Public safety is code for “I know better than you” Fascism, Communism and Totalitarianism were all real big on Public Health. For your studies showing bicycle accidents and head trauma I can counter with my study showing taking risks as a child allows children to learn from mistakes and take better risks as an adult. It’s no more black and white than anything else.

I think gay marriage should be legal, I’ve said it for years. But I also think bakeries shouldn’t be forced to serve people they don’t want to, or photographers, or anyone, for any reason. I think the people refused service have every right to complain, and leave bad reviews based off that, and start boycott campaigns, and most places would kill a business that tried it, but it should be legal.

26

How about an argument that says that marriage is something that was created to make the transfer of wealth from generation to generation easier, and that the trappings of spousal support and alimony and death benefits have outlived their usefulness?

There are other reasons to oppose gay marriage other than intolerance and religion. Hell, plenty of people oppose any marriage. The same group of people pushing for gay marriage, are the people saying marriage is useless.

I don’t see how that would necessarily require restricting marriage to male+female only, since adoption is a thing.

Personally, I don’t see the point of marriage for myself (insofar as legally tying yourself to another person), but I understand that it’s the norm for people to do and there’s no reason to restrict who can do it for silly things like “the person you love happens to have the same equipment you do”.

This gets muddy real quick. Isn’t taking a counter position to this trying to impose your religious views on them? By your moral standards it’s wrong, but what if drowning puppies was ok by someone’s standards? When PETA comes by are they going to tell them to keep their beliefs out of their morals? Or when the local KoC wants to have a fundraiser to stop them, are their religious beliefs infringing on their rights to drown puppies? Animals have no rights, laws set to protect them are based in morality as agreed on at the time by the majority.

I agree it gets real muddy real quick. Anything that affects more than one person will, however it’s a lot less idiotic to be arguing from a position that has logic and science behind it than one that’s purely based on belief or feeling. It’s kind of one of the reasons I have so many issues with organized religion as it is, because while it can produce good things, far more often we see that it causes people to just behave irrationally in the name of their deity/deities of choice simply because that’s what their religion tells them to do. Not sure if that’s more emphasized by the media that only picks up the bad things that we hear about (like Westboro and the like), but it’s been happening for a very long time (the Crusades, for example)

I think gay marriage should be legal, I’ve said it for years. But I also think bakeries shouldn’t be forced to serve people they don’t want to, or photographers, or anyone, for any reason. I think the people refused service have every right to complain, and leave bad reviews based off that, and start boycott campaigns, and most places would kill a business that tried it, but it should be legal.

I agree with you here.

28

If I own the corner store, and I’m working the counter I sure do have the right to refuse service. If I own a business and tell my employees not to serve someone then that’s the way they better do it. Are you saying that as soon as I start a business I lose my rights? If nothing else I can just close it down and I won’t serve anyone. Can you force me to keep it open?

I have gone into places where my kind was not welcome, and frankly I left as soon as was practical. They didn’t refuse to give me service but I wish they had actually had a sign on the door, I wouldn’t have wasted my time going there.

Any organization does this. Just because someone’s deity is named Equal Opportunity, Green Energy, Climate Change, OWS, or even TEA Party, or Libertarianism, or Communism, doesn’t mean that they don’t have a religion. Ever done something because someone you trust told you to do it? You are guilty of the same thing.

Blaming religion for all the worlds flaws may help you understand the world, but I think it’s a false understanding if you don’t expand the definition of Religion to include Causes. Don’t think, do what we tell you is the message of almost every alphabet soup organization in the world, don’t lay that at the altar of religion without it’s secular counterpart.

29

Blaming religion for all the worlds flaws may help you understand the world, but I think it’s a false understanding if you don’t expand the definition of Religion to include Causes. Don’t think, do what we tell you is the message of almost every alphabet soup organization in the world, don’t lay that at the altar of religion without it’s secular counterpart.

This is true. Religion doesn’t have a monopoly on it, but for some reason it really seems to stand out when it’s a religion causing the problem than when it’s some other cause, though that might just be my own mental feedback loop causing that (I don’t trust religion, so I tend to see the negative side of religion more, which makes me distrust religion more, ad infinitum). Hell, half the causes out there are practically religions in all but name anymore anyway…

30

Climate Change, 2nd Amendment, 1st Amendment, Equal Rights, Gay Marriage, take the wrong side on any of those in the wrong group and you will get stoned.

Take the right stand on legalizing marijuana in the right group and you really will get stoned.I also want to know where my hemp powered supercar is though. Made out of hemp, with hemp glass, and hemp tires.

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31

Because generally the media have an agenda - and that agenda is more often than not religion-bashing.
I once saw a 20/20 article about a local pastor who had objected to a lesbian being ordained as a minister. I fundamentally disagreed with the local minister, but the article was so incredibly slanted against him that I found myself having more sympathy for him. The entire tone of the article was that he was a bigot and the lesbian was his victim. They even did the cheap trick of interviewing them from different angles - her from above to make her look small and helpless, him from below to make him look big and threatening.

While I completely disagree with the Christian stand on homosexuality, I disagree more with things like rape and child beating - but who gets the headlines?

I believe that the Christian position on homosexuality will change, but it will take time. 50 years ago a woman preaching in church was completely unheard of as it was forbidden in the bible (don’t get me started on that one). These days it is commonplace. There are still some church people who believe it is wrong, but they are very much in the minority. I think homosexuality will go the same way.

As for the bike helmet example, that was just meant to demonstrate that the actions taken were a massive overreaction to something fairly minor.
The real meat to that message though was in the second half, especially the article I linked to.

33

So, by filing for the protections of an LLC, for example, I lose my rights. If I am a one man company, a photographer for example, then I lose my right to contract, free association, speech, and religion. All so I don’t get my house taken away in a lawsuit against my business, most of which today seem to be related to some governmental action or in relation to my right to contract, free association, or freedom of speech or religion.

Don’t get me wrong, I think refusing to serve someone because of race/ religion/hat size is a dick thing, but I also think forcing someone to serve someone they don’t want to is a dickier thing.

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34

The owner of a basketball team says quite a few things that are stupid, it’s recorded and gets to the press somehow. Righteous indignation ensues, companies drop their association with his team, he’s banned from the sport, will likely be forced to sell the team, and the president of the Los Angeles NAACP resigns because they were about to give him another lifetime achievement award and cancelling that wasn’t good enough. The lawyer for the other person in the conversation says the recording is accurate, wasn’t leaked by her client and the fact that it was leaked isn’t in retaliation for a lawsuit against her as some have claimed. She’s mostly on his side because what everyone is up in arms about is only about a quarter of the entire conversation, but she says he does need to apologize.

Okay. So setting aside all of that and the issue of how the recording got leaked, the question is why was it being recorded in the first place?

35

Question 2. What opinion do you hold now that will get you fired in 5 years?

Question 3. How long until students in school get extra credit for outing their parents as racists, or climate change deniers?

Question 4. Do any of the people building this brave new world realize that just because they hold the power now doesn’t mean they always will?

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36

You’re right about it starting (and continuing) in the schools. I’m not sure who creates the curriculum for each school district, but as a citizen, I’d argue that we should have more control over what ends up in our children’s lessons. I recall when I was in elementary school, they try to shove a lot of political agendas down your throat throughout your 3 Rs, but it didn’t get really bad until about High School, which, in my opinion, is when you’re viewpoint of the world is most vulnerable. Somehow as History class neared it’s review of the 60’s and later years, it amazingly turned into Politics and Democrat Ideas 101. I’m all for understanding viewpoints, but it would have been awesome to understand both sides of the aisle objectively, not just a one-sided perspective looking across the aisle.

37

Did you know that the Vietnam war was reallystarted by Nixon? And that the most important part of that war was his secret plans to win it and also the election?

My 17 year old and I had an interesting series of conversations about that one. I asked her the party affiliation of the President that segregated the federal services and the military after the Civil War, and the party of the President that had us join WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, and the bombing campaigns in Kosovo and Libya. Except for Desert Storm, each of those was a Democrat. Yet Republicans are the blood thirsty war mongers.

Oh, and Democrats were against the Civil Rights Bill, and Margaret Sanger was a eugenicist looking to thin out the “lesser” races. And McCarthy was a blessing compared to some of the witch hunts today.

Condi Rice is a war criminal, and Obama a Peace Prize winner. How many Americans did Rice order killed by drone strikes in countries we aren’t at war in? Next thing you know someone will tell me Rosaenne Barr sang the national anthem perfectly, and I just heard it bad because Tea Party Racist!

2 Likes
38

Trigger: Child Rape

http://deirdre.net/marion-zimmer-bradley-its-worse-than-i-knew/

http://deirdre.net/marion-zimmer-bradley-gave-us-new-perspectives-all-right/

I had no idea MZB’s husband, and herself had any issues like this. I didn’t know about any of the prior hohaw about it. And now her daughter is coming out with more.

Why is it that I hear Heinlein, Tom Kratman, Larry Corriea, Sarah Hoyt, and any other conservative/Libertarian leaning author being called haters, misogynists, pro rape, hater mchatey hatists? (Hell, even Vox Day and John Ringo only write about it, they don’t actually do it)

When there is absolute evidence that these people did, and or support, pedophilia and rape?

Let’s get all in a hoohaw about word usage and micro aggression, but then hold up MZB as the perfect Scifi writer for her inclusiveness of other gender thought in her books. Ignoring the fact that she at the very least ignored her husband’s serial abuse of young boys. If you add in the latest then she had a parallel abusive track herself. Yet, already people are defending her, and victim blaming and attacking her daughter.

Q. And to your knowledge, how old was [Victim X] when your husband was having a sexual relationship with him?
A. I think he was about 14 or possibly 15. I’m not certain.
Q. Were you aware that your husband had a sexual relationship with [Victim X] when he was below the age of 18?
A. Yes, I was.

And:

Q. Can you tell me why you would publicly state that Walter was not a
pedophile when you knew that he had been having sex with a minor child?
A. Because, as I said, [Victim X] did not impress me as a minor
child. He was late in his teens, and I considered him — I think he would
have been old enough to be married in this state legally, so I figured
what he did sexually was his own business.
[Editor’s note: In point of fact, the boy was 10 and 11 at the time in question.]

Later she talks about not worrying about a boy being with her husband because he was too old at 15. WTF?

I liked her writing, she wasn’t on my top ten, but I liked it. And now I’m immensely uncomfortable. I wanted to read the Darkover series finally, but I don’t think I’ll bother now. I can buy books from people I don’t detest, there are plenty of those.

39

Not paying for 4 types of birth control does not equal denying access to birth control.

And frankly, not paying for health care does not deny access to a medication that for the average person costs less than $10 a month.

You’d think this was a fight over paying for vaccinations, or insulin, or some other life saving necessary medicine… not a recreational drug. Even a plan that won’t cover a birth control pill will cover a hormonal treatment that happens to be a BCP, same as any other drug.

Why the hell should Sandra Fluke get free birth control if little Johnny’s mom has to pay for his insulin? Of all the benefits to get bent out of shape over. It’s flat out vote buying.

40

There actually is something called “Straight Pride”. The sticker I’ve been seeing is a black square with three horizontal white dashes in it (like the Human Rights Campaign is blue with two yellow dashes).

I haven’t looked it up or anything. Maybe it’s parody, maybe it’s the old “My straight white male privilege is being questioned and I feel guilty about it, so I’m going to assemble with a bunch of others just like me to make up for it”. You know, sort of like the Million Man March.

I dunno, @Woodman, I just can’t get excited about the poor misunderstood Tea Partiers or Palin for Something Temporary campaigners. A bunch of people who think they are entitled to what they want, complaining that other people think they are entitled to the same thing.

I’ll admit, I am an anarchist. I don’t believe that any organization or hierarchy can exist to enforce rules, without becoming oppressive. I also believe that it is everyone’s obligation to encourage good behavior in those around them and discourage bad behavior. I believe that, if you want something to happen within your neighborhood/city/state/etc., you’d better be ready to do it yourself or shut up. I believe that everybody has the right to lead their lives according to their own compass, as long as it does not harm anyone else.

Unfortunately, our state religion is founded on the idea that if other religions exist, any and all adherents are inherently evil. Any other belief system, opinion, etc., is subject to capital punishment, because their millenia-old employment contract says so and it makes them feel icky inside.

Face it, just me saying I am an anarchist got a whole bunch of knee-jerk reactions, with people making judgements based on a word that they don’t really understand.

The same judgements, sans understanding, are called forth by a lot of the labels that, frankly, the politicians and muckrakers use to distract everyone from facts. “Communist” (we’ve never had even one true communist community in the world, much less a nation), “Radical” (everybody back in the box, dammit!), “Socialist” (not even going there), “conservative” (hell, I don’t even know what the hell they think they’re conserving), “liberal” (with what? butter on their toast?), etc.

Kind of like the people who scream that they are good Christians while voting to enshrine heinous acts of prejudice in their State Constitutions. Several times a week, I am forced to listen to a dozen or more people proclaim themselves Christians through bullhorns, in blatant violation of Matthew 6:5,6. Those people are not Christians, they are not good Christians. They use a word they don’t even understand. Because understanding takes work.

And that’s the crux of it, @Woodman. It’s easier to throw a label around than to go through all that work to understand. It’s not convenient.

Like the thread title says, Politics is Stupid. Because Politics is what is created when a society or community doesn’t want to take the time and effort to understand what is going on. It is created by con-men, disseminated by fools, and believed by the gullible.

As one ijjit said to me, without a trace of shame, “It’s easier to just use a label than to say all that.” This was at a meeting of radical activists, trying to come up with ideas to get our communities engaged and cooperating again.

And nobody laughed.

41

The people I see categorizing people by their religion, gender, sexual preference, or whatever, are people like you, and people that we all agree are wrong. The people I know don’t give a shit what you are. We’re more concerned with how you act than what you are. I don’t give a shit who you have sex with or what you worship. Or maybe what you have sex with and who you worship…

You have fun judging people by their sexual orientation, gender and sexual preference though. Just keep in mind that you look into the abyss, yadda yadda yadda.

Thing is, I really think that you think I care that you are homosexual, I really don’t. I think that you believe that my friends and the people I deal with on a regular basis would treat you differently because of this. And I can tell you, except for one dude, you’d be wrong. And that one dude holds some really odd ideas about homosexuality that have to do with his racial and cultural background. (as a side note, I would really and truly hate to be a poor inner city gay black male, even in the most accepting cities that’s hard mode)

A form of government people are no more equipped to handle than true communism. In practice Anarchy lasts about 2 seconds before someone decides to take over. And enough people will stay out of it to let them do it every time. The world, and people, can’t support a true communist system, just trying harder isn’t going to work. As long as there is any scarcity it just won’t work.

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42

I shouldn’t let you get under my skin on this, I enjoy most of our debates, but the dismissive categorization and judgement is so hypocritical that I have problems seeing past it. I’ll leave my attitude in the post above, but try to read it with a forgiving eye.

You live in such a different world, where people call each other out on the street, I can say in the last 20 years I have seen someone with a megaphone preaching zero times. I’ve seen someone on the side of the street preaching without a megaphone maybe a couple times. If you include the Muslims selling incense and the paper then almost every time I drive past that intersection, but I don’t really. Oh, and I saw Jesus walk through town on his way from Charleston to Seattle.

You live in a world where people are constantly getting in each others faces and yelling at each other. The judgment that you take for granted there just doesn’t happen here. Why the heck would someone be preaching with a megaphone? Why would a total stranger bother to express their dislike for you or the way you are? Why are the public servants there so nasty to you, and hateful? And the shelters? What a crappy town.

The city you live in sounds horrible to me. Yet, Nabiki lives in such a nice sounding place.

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43

You know, maybe it’s just the cold talking, but I’m tired of this shit.

@Woodman, you went from me mentioning that I had seen this sticker around, to accusing me of judging everyone else.

You then loaded that Chip on Your Shoulder ™ up and started blasting away.

There’s several ways I could handle this. I could do what I’ve done in the past, and go away for a few months, maybe longer.

Not this time. Because I didn’t do anything wrong, so I don’t see where I need to be punished.

[quote=“Woodman, post:41, topic:556”]I really think that you think I care that you are homosexual, I really don’t. I think that you believe that my friends and the people I deal with on a regular basis would treat you differently because of this. And I can tell you, except for one dude, you’d be wrong.
[/quote]

And no matter how many times you say it, that still won’t make what you say reality.

But what I think does bother you is that I represent everything that you think is wrong with society. You’ve bitched and whined about the homeless, the poor, the disabled… That those with the least amount of money or power are supposedly at fault for everything, and are secretly scheming against you. You do the same with Democrats, liberals, and progressives.

You used those labels. You. I said the labels don’t mean shit because nobody knows what they mean anyway.

I have been hearing, for several years now, white, middle-class, heterosexuals whine about how they are being oppressed by minorities and all their Big Money Backers ™. San Francisco has tons of them, who also whine about how the gays are forcing them out, as they move into the city in droves to be in the middle of all the start-ups and bullshit.

If we were to total up the number of times you mention your wife or kids, and then me mentioning being gay, I wonder what the totals would look like. Actually, no I don’t, because we both know what they would look like.

You keep telling yourself that you are not prejudiced. Every time you open your mouth about the current administration, versus the previous one that nearly bankrupted the country, you prove it.

As a few of us have pointed out before, your opinion of “them” is well-known. You make damned sure of that. That little bit about

is pure, utter bullshit. The constant bitching about “them” proves it.

You are the one who originally created the title of this thread. I have to wonder what the hell you were thinking, when you play the same cover-them-with-shit-until-it-sticks that the useless jackasses in the nation’s capitol, and every state capitol, use to keep you from asking the tough questions.

Ethics? Liberals! Budget? Progressives! Deficit? Democrats! Sex scandal? Socialists! Child molestation? Satanic Tax and Spend Communists! With Eggbeaters!

Yeah, ridiculous. It always has been and always will be, until people stop acting as like an organic echo chamber.

But I am really sick of feeling like you’re pointing the crosshairs at me, and a few others, every time you bitch about one group or another, which happens to include people on this site. It’s been made plain on several occasion that there are people who disagree with you on certain subjects.

And the way you turn it into an attack on everything American is just a symptom of the stupid, useless political game that you continue to play, just like the legislators and appointed officials you so strongly despise.

You’re not chasing me away again, @Woodman.We all, except @Lee_Ars, have the same “right” to be here. Which is none, as it is his site. The rest of us are simply guests here, and our invitations can be revoked at any time, singly or by the gross.

And knock off the whining. Every time you use “it’s not fair”, all you’re really saying is that you aren’t getting your way, that reality is not ordering itself according to your specs.

Well, that’s why it’s called reality. There really are people who are homeless through no fault of their own. There really are people who are poor through no fault of their own and despite their best efforts. And yes, for the final time, there really are people who work for minimum wage. And damn few of them have a choice in the matter.

The way that you are so out of touch with virtually every strata in our society is mind-boggling.

44

Now, I’m no mod, but I think the tone is getting a little heavy in here. I don’t think @Woodman is pointing crosshairs (gun reference, funny, now that I think of it), let alone chasing you away. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything he’s said that has implied that intent. @ClockWorkXon, I actually appreciate your perspective on things, as I do @Woodman’s, but I think it’s getting taken a tad personally when I don’t think that’s the intention at all.

Maybe we should all just go get a drink of your personal choice?

EDIT: Updated, to apply that the intent was not to get inebriated, but rather, to spend time in the light-hearted manner that one does when sharing the company over a frosty-glassed beverage or hot mug, or lukewarm mason jar.

EDIT2: Updated, in the event that you wanted to drink something hot or warm.

45

Unfortunately, I can’t drink. It would be irresponsible of me to do so, for reasons that I choose not to share here.