Wednesday 3 February 2010

Does Simon Jenkins shit in the woods?

... I feel that the best response to the careening unexamined prejudice of the esteemed Mr Jenkins' latest article on Comment Is Free is a line-by line takedown.

The pope is right and ­Harriet Harman is wrong.

I'm on tenterhooks, Simon, please explain.

I might prefer the ­opposite to be the case but, on the matter in hand, Voltaire's ­principle should apply. The ­Roman Catholic church may be a hotbed of religious prejudice, indoctrination and, somewhere in the United Kingdom, social division.

...and sexual discrimination, intolerance and ugly homophobic dogma.

But faced with Harriet Harman's equality bill and her utopian campaign to straighten all the rough timber of mankind, the pope's right to practise what he preaches needs defending.

Last I heard, it wasn't Harman who was anxious to straighten out her constituents.

The pope's complaint, in his outspoken announcement yesterday of his visit to Britain in September, is that Catholics are being denied an important human right: to decide their own employment criteria

Extremely original interpretetion of human rights, Simon, well done.

...for those working in churches and schools or applying to Catholic adoption agencies. The particular issue is homosexuality. Regarding homosexuals as unsuitable may be outdated, even odious, but it does not require the state to force private institutions to employ those whose character or habits they regard as not for them.

Regarding homosexuals as unsuitable is outdated, and it is odious, and 'freedom of speech' is no defence against bigotry and intolerance. Last I heard, it was beneath our ambition as a country to tolerate recalcitrant, ugly prejudice in any part of our infrastructure - and the Catholic church is a huge part of our national infrastructure, operating as it does as a sanctioned educational provider.

An idiot objection is that anyone who defends a pope is defending the comprehensively indefensible. Certainly I disagree even with the terms in which Pope Benedict expressed his dissent. I do not believe that denying him an aspect of his religious freedom is "contrary to natural law" or even inherently "unjust". No one, as the pope implied, is "disputing the gospel's right to be heard".

Oh noes! They be stealing my right to an unassailable dogmatic platform!

I deplore the attitude of the Catholic church to homosexuality...

Glad you got around to saying that, Simon, because I was wondering if you were about to imply that rampant, institutionalised Catholic homophobia is irrelevant to the debate, and suggest that forbidding gay people to work in one's institutions or benefit from one's services is just another harmless example of'free speech'.

That is beside the point. It might be comfortable for liberals simply to grant the pope the "human right" to express his views and no more. But a truly free society is not like Solzhenitsyn's Soviet asylum, where freedom of speech is permitted only to those safely certified and incarcerated in prison. Tolerance must be shown not just to an opinion but to the personal and group behaviour that results from that opinion.

...oh.

That the pope might support the suppression of abortion clinics does not justify Harman's suppression of Catholic adoption agencies. But then I have little doubt that if Harman were a Catholic she would be stamping out clinics with the most draconian of powers.

Because she's an eeeeevil feminazi, OMG.

The avowedly socialist drift of her bill is "not only to build a new economic order but a new social order", a social order of her own devising.

Women's rights, racial and sexual equality, protection for the elderly, the disabled and the poor might not be interesting to you, Simon, but then hopefully we won't be living in a world run almost exclusively by people of your particular age, gender, race and social and sexual demographic for much longer. Till then, just you carry on believing that Harriet Harman invented feminism all by herself just to piss you off.

People with such ambition are usually intolerant of others, and often dangerous.

Women with any ambition are nearly always seen as dangerous.

The cabinet of which Harman has been a member for a decade has promoted and subsidised faith schools, allowing them to do what she is banning the Catholic church from doing – that is, use religion as a tool of human discrimination. Many people regard the consequence of faith schools as more widespread and communally divisive than the hiring practices of the Catholic church. Why is Harman doing nothing to end them?

Except that Catholic schools are faith schools. Do you want to ban all faith schools, Simon, or just the non-Christian ones?

There are still large numbers of Britons who are uncomfortable with those whose behaviour diverges from what they see as traditional norms. These conservatives have swallowed much this past half-century, as authoritarianism has been steadily eradicated by liberal legislation on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and free speech.

How terrible for them. My heart bleeds, it bleeds, just like a terrible cunt, which coincidentally, Simon...

Occasionally the liberalism has looked more like intolerance, as over smoking and aspects of "hate speech". Indeed to some people, liberalism's onward march has seemed more like a jackboot in the face.

All liberals R Nazis!!*$!

Harman is one of those Labour ministers whom no one would describe as a defender of liberty. Her campaign against domestic violence stands to her credit, but she cannot walk down a street without screaming for a policeman to find out what the world is doing and telling it to stop.

...the screeching, hysterical bint with her horrible ladybits all over the nice Deputy Leader's seat.

British liberalism has had a good half-century, but has begun to lurch into the intolerance it purports to oppose. It should loosen up and acknowledge that some communal space must be allowed the old illiberalism.

Communal space, perhaps. Unilateral control over the education of children or the provision of adoption services, no.

In reality, 11 Catholic adoption ­agencies out of 480 were hardly a monument to bigotry. A celibate Catholic chaplaincy or a Christian school headship is hardly a knife at the heart of social equality, any more than a men's club

Those harmless men's-only clubs that, until recently, helped to keep all women from positions of power for centuries.

or some miserable smokers loitering outside an office block (on whose freedom the ­government also wants to stamp).

This whiny attempt to curry favour with the chain-smoking wingnut libertarian contingent of Guardian readers just makes me want to stub out a fag in your face, Simon.

The ailing Catholic church, like most hallowed institutions, does much good work, and it does bad. But the bad is not an incarnation of such evil as to merit state persecution, as if this were still the 17th century.

Oh woe, the poor Catholic Church, with its insignificant, persecuted 1.3bn adherents. The poor Catholic Church, one of the biggest enforcers of punitive ideology and state-level persecution of anyone who happens to be a little bit different. Who will protect it?


57 comments:

  1. Thank you. I love reading your posts normally, but this one in particular came as a real antidote to reading that horrible article by Simon Jenkins this morning.
    Keep up the great writing.

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  2. Regarding homosexuals as unsuitable is outdated, and it is odious, and 'freedom of speech' is no defence against bigotry and intolerance.

    No, freedom of speech generally is a defence for those things. As is the freedom of others to fight back using their own freedoms (e.g. Twitter campaign against Jan Moir and so forth). I think you're saying that 'freedom of speech' is not a moral defence, in which case you are right. But it is a legal defence; people are allowed to say things that are morally wrong.

    Last I heard, it was beneath our ambition as a country to tolerate recalcitrant, ugly prejudice in any part of our infrastructure - and the Catholic church is a huge part of our national infrastructure, operating as it does as a sanctioned educational provider.

    Ah, now this is where the matter gets interesting. Should the state fund bodies [via educational funding] that discriminate against citizens on grounds of sexuality, race, religion or any other personal characteristic that is either a matter of conscience or a matter of no choice? Well, no, it shouldn't. I personally think Simon Jenkins is right that the Catholic church has a right to determine who it wants to employ, but it doesn't have a right to ask the rest of us to fund its activities while it does so. And, for that matter, neither does any other organisation which has the purpose of of privileging one group over another. That's simply not where our taxes should be going. So I agree with you, on the proviso that this is applied equally (and Simon Jenkins is particularly absurd in his cherry-picking of groups he wants to protect and those he wants to restrict).

    Beyond that point, being Catholic is a free choice and if people want to be Catholic then good luck to them. I don't see why the government should care.

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  3. Yes - why is respect accorded to bigoted 'believers' that would never be accorded to their secular equivalents ?

    The Catholic Church and its defenders are using the same argument - essentially we are a private club with our own rules - as was used by the BNP to justify their ban on black members.

    On a practical level I can't imagine why anyone would want to join a club whose belief systems viewed them with such contempt. But at least raising the issue (as it did with the BNP) exposes their prejudices...

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  4. Spot on.

    Jenkins is a fool, and I think it's clear his piece is motivated by both homophobia and misogyny. He also has a 7 year olds' conception of rights.

    I'm suprised he didn't have a line saying "don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are women or poofs" - maybe he did and it got subbed out.

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  5. Brilliant - that was as good as Jenkins' article was bad.

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  6. This is wonderful. Thank you. :-)

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  7. Tolerance must be shown not just to an opinion but to the personal and group behaviour that results from that opinion.

    No, that's exactly what discrimination law is intended to forbid. You have a right to your mistaken ideas, but when they advise you to hurt other people, the law steps in and prevents it.

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  8. It is a ridiculous piece from Jenkins.

    The rights and wrong of liberalism or the personal agenda of Harriet Harman are issues but the more important issue is equality before the law.

    All 'private institutions' are forced to comply with employment law. If churches don't have to, why should anyone else?

    Why do religious notions of acceptable private behaviour take precedence over non-religious notions of acceptable private behaviour?

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  9. Isn't it kind of ironic that a church which champions and promotes homophobia throughout the world was (and still probably is) riddled with legions of choirboy buggering paedophile priests?

    Want to know what I say?

    FUCK THE POPE!!!

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  10. If an all powerful deity did exist, would they really care about the sex of the partner of a barely evolved ape inhabiting an unremarkable planet in the middle of an unremarkable solar system?

    It's too absurd for words.

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  11. That's two posts in a row now regarding privileged individuals posting about how important their right to discriminate against, dehumanise and mistreat others is. I don't get how they can genuinely believe they're such special snowflakes that their discrimination against others should be protected far above and beyond anyone else's right not to be discriminated against.

    I do hope that this special little twisted method of doublethink isn't on the rise. It'll make for some really awkward moments during pub debates.

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  12. Except that Catholic schools are faith schools. Do you want to ban all faith schools, Simon, or just the non-Christian ones?

    All faith schools, to be fair to him. Jenkins is a borderline Dawkinite atheist, who's criticised the Church of England & religion in general in the past.

    That doesn't stop his argument in that paragraph from being a stonking great non sequiter, though.

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  13. Not all 'liberals' are Nazis. But some of them get a kick out of the imagery of inhumanity. Who knows what lies behind it ?

    "My dreams I daren't remember, or tell you what I've seen"

    "If you want a picture of the future, imagine Laurie Penny stubbing a fag out in Simon Jenkins' face - forever"

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  14. Amigo rich - whichever way you look at it, reality is too absurd for words - so absurdity shouldn`t be counted as a black mark against a religion.

    The question I have about this is - how the fuck are we supposed to know if someone is gay or whether someone else is discriminating against them because of it.

    The only people who are going to get caught by this law are the ones being honest about their homophobia.

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  15. I'm normally a big fan. But this is far and away the weakest article I have ever seen at this blog.

    Don't get me wrong, I'm totally down with forcing the Catholic church to obey all anti-discrimination laws on the book.

    I am also highly sceptical of rebranding discriminatory hiring practices as "speech", and thus creating a free speech argument. If the Catholic church wants to hold anti-gay symposiums, then I can see the argument for letting them, though I would be there arguing with the bigoted sumbitches. But speech is not action.

    I do find it notable that all of your objections to Simon Jenkins do focus on how odious you find homophobia. Which, while a fair point, is a problem. Because if you can be given the right to try and create social norms, then why can't say Sarah Palin.

    But the thing that really upsets me is how easily you dismiss Simon Jenkins as a mysogenist for daring to question Harriet Harman. The entire second half of your article has not one substantive argument, but an invective laden parody of the mans views!

    I don't think that questiong the blatent authoritarinism of Harriet "the court of public opinion" Harman has to come from a fear of women, and moreover I think it is weak of you to suggest so.

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  16. whoopsie: Quite so, although to be fair, this post is still better than an average Simon "Viruses? What are they?" Jenkins piece.

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  17. Jenkins wrote, "authoritarianism has been steadily eradicated by liberal legislation on homosexuality, abortion, divorce and free speech."

    I'm a little bit confused about why he would lump these 4 issues together. Is he trying to say that being actively gay is like aborting a foetus or the painful is sometimes necessary process of getting a divorce?

    Has he got issues with free speech?

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  18. It's not an "original interpretation". It's the only sensible interpretation. Without the right to choose who to mix with and who to do business with we are not free.

    And when did the Catholic Church have "unilateral control" of adoption?

    - Francis

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  19. You poor lost souls. Seek the Lord and beg his forgiveness. Seek the Lord and he will give you many opportunities to atone for your manifold sins. Fall to your knees and seek the Lord. As Christ said "Seek, and ye shall find..." (Matthew 7:7). I shall pray for you all. God bless.

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  20. I'd like to see equality in Catholicism with male and female Priests, Cardinals and Popes! I say the next Vicar of Christ should be female! Who's with me?

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  21. Have you ever actually stubbed a cigarette out in someone's face?

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  22. Penny Dreadful wrote:

    - "...and sexual discrimination, intolerance and ugly homophobic dogma."

    Reminds me of an old Doonesbury cartoon about an operation to transplant the heart of a liberal into the body of a conservative. "How will we keep the heart from bleeding during surgery?"

    - "Last I heard, it wasn't Harman who was anxious to straighten out her constituents."

    The Harridan is anxious to straighten out all of us.

    - "Extremely original interpretetion of human rights, Simon, well done."

    'The world has heard enough of the so-called "rights of man." Let it hear something of the rights of God.' - Pope Leo XIII

    - "Last I heard, it was beneath our ambition as a country to tolerate recalcitrant, ugly prejudice in any part of our infrastructure"

    Last I heard, you weren't a spokesman for our country.

    - "...rampant, institutionalised Catholic homophobia ..."

    'As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated hen-house. ...'
    'You can shirk [the effort of thinking for yourself] by simply throwing your mind open and letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in. The will construct your sentences for you — even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent — and at need they will perform the important service of partially concealing your meaning even from yourself.'

    (G. Orwell, 'Politics and the English Language')

    - "Because she's an eeeeevil feminazi, OMG."

    You said it, sister.

    - "... just you carry on believing that Harriet Harman invented feminism all by herself just to piss you off."

    The Harridan didn't invent feminism. All she does is embody it.

    - "Women with any ambition are nearly always seen as dangerous."

    They nearly always are. Viz Harperson.

    - "How terrible for them. My heart bleeds, it bleeds, just like a terrible cunt, which coincidentally..."

    Too easy.

    - "All liberals R Nazis!!*$!"

    No, only fanatics like yourself.

    - "...the screeching, hysterical bint with her horrible ladybits all over the nice Deputy Leader's seat."

    There, there, dear. Don't you worry your pretty little head about a thing.

    - "Those harmless men's-only clubs that, until recently, helped to keep all women from positions of power for centuries."

    Good thing too. As you have amply proved, women are by nature highly emotional. This is a good thing, but the heart must sometimes be ruled by the head. In any case, women have long held positions of power, just in a domestic context rather than a public one.

    - "This whiny attempt to curry favour with the chain-smoking wingnut libertarian contingent of Guardian readers just makes me want to stub out a fag in your face, Simon."

    Calm down, dear. You sound like you could do with a cigarette yourself. They can be quite ladylike.

    - "Oh woe, the poor Catholic Church, with its insignificant, persecuted 1.3bn adherents. The poor Catholic Church, one of the biggest enforcers of punitive ideology and state-level persecution of anyone who happens to be a little bit different. Who will protect it?"

    Um, Jesus Christ?

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  23. Bronze Age Man - your moniker is incredibly apt. Your understanding of politics is blunt and outdated, and your reductive, inaccurate understanding of what women are, and what feminism is, would disgust me if it didn't bore me so damn much.

    'Nearly all women in positions of power are dangerous' - really? **really?**

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  24. For God's sake, he's doing it to provoke a response. why even approve comments like that?

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  25. Mark - No, it just makes it increasingly unlikely that it is true.

    What are the odds that the deity (Creator of everything, yadda, yadda, yadda) cares about about the sexuality of a partner, compared with the odds that it is all man made and untrue?

    The absurdity is that in 2010 we even have to treat religion with unwarranted seriousness.

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  26. Neurskeptic wrote:

    "he's doing it to provoke a response"

    Well of course I am -- just like Penny.

    Penny wrote:

    " ... your reductive, inaccurate understanding of what women are, and what feminism is, would disgust me if it didn't bore me so damn much."

    Feminism angers & saddens me because it leaves women and girls unprotected.

    You see, it really doesn't matter how many adolescent girls feel "empowered" by watching Buffy beat hordes of monstrous foes to pulp: in the real world most women are ultimately at the mercy of most men's superior physical strength. Deny it all you want, but in the real world women's physical autonomy exists on suffrance. Should a scantily-clad woman have the right to walk down a dark alley unmolested? Of course she should! But that "right" exists as long as men tacitly agree to recognize it. That's the brute fact of the matter.

    Most women might think it ought to be otherwise and most men might think so too, but who "by taking thought, can add to his stature by one cubit?"

    I would suggest that it is against this background of harsh reality that traditional sexual morality should be understood. The prohibitions and taboos, the emphasis on purity, chastity and chivalry exist not to keep women down but to keep women safe by regulating the predatory instincts of men.

    Part of the problem is the basic liberal confusion about sex. Liberals claim the weakening of taboos surrounding sex has been a positive development, and long may it continue!

    There seem to be two main arguments to support this view:

    1. Sex is utterly harmless and innocuous. To fence it round with puritanical taboos is cruel and unnecessary, breaking a butterfly on the wheel.
    2. Sex is a primordial powerhouse of raw dionysiac energy. To attempt to dam this volcano is both futile and dangerous.

    These kind of contradict each other but the same liberal will often come out with both. I recall having a conversation many years ago with a feminist colleague concerning a news story about a girl who'd been sexually assaulted while out alone wearing what some would consider 'provocative' dress. The feminist waxed indignant about males - all potential rapists, uncivilized, utterly unable to control their savage instincts, little better than brutes basically. Should, then, the victim have dressed less provocatively so as not to inflame this uncontrollable savagery? Certainly not, exclaimed the outraged feminist - men should be expected to exercise self-control!

    Cognitive dissonance much?

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  27. Can't we at least get it out that what Pope Benedict is saying about Natural Law is both ridiculous (helping the oppressed and disenfranchised does not mean you are oppressing a majority--file under, Why White Power Created "Reverse Discrimination") and contradictory (self-evident, by not regulating through legislation we permit inequality as the status quo.)

    In the US, the Christian Right Wing has been on about sexual practice and free speech since they experienced a rather profound loss when the Supreme Court of the US struck down a sodomy law as unconstitutional in Lawrence v Texas. Ever since then, any legislation that would prohibit discrimination against homosexuals has become an issue about Free Speech. In other words, Christians claim that any permissiveness about homosexual practice itself oppresses their ability to say it's wrong.

    Apparently, the Catholic Church has revised its Doctrine to embrace this ridiculous position within its overall view of Natural Law.

    It's laughable political rhetoric.

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  28. The prohibitions and taboos, the emphasis on purity, chastity and chivalry exist not to keep women down but to keep women safe by regulating the predatory instincts of men.

    Great, another anti-feminist who hates men almost as much as he hates women.

    Clue for you, 'Bronze Age': men do not have "predatory instincts" with regards to sexuality. Men are socialised into predatory behaviour by the very prohibitions and taboos you claim protect against that behaviour.

    There seem to be two main arguments to support this view:

    ...

    These kind of contradict each other but the same liberal will often come out with both.


    Actually, they don't contradict one another but are derived from one another. If we think instead of a fast-flowing river, that has a lot of power and if we are wise then we can draw on that power, experience exhilaration by communing with that power, as long as we respect it and one another. But if we try to dam such a river then sooner or later the waters will overflow, the dam will burst and devastation will ensue. Even if that doesn't happen then everything downstream of our dam will become parched and withered, dry and barren (BTW, quick reminder that this is a psychic/mental metaphor, not a physical/medical one). The same entity can be safe and harmless when it is allowed to flow free, and also dangerous and violent when it is penned in.

    The feminist waxed indignant about males - all potential rapists, uncivilized, utterly unable to control their savage instincts, little better than brutes basically. Should, then, the victim have dressed less provocatively so as not to inflame this uncontrollable savagery? Certainly not, exclaimed the outraged feminist - men should be expected to exercise self-control!

    Cognitive dissonance much?


    I don't know how much theory knowledge this feminist had, but it doesn't take a lot of thought to see how the two thoughts "men are..." and "men should be expected to..." can coexist in the same thought stream without any "dissonance". Let me explain:

    "Men are all potential rapists, uncivilized, utterly unable to control their savage instincts, little better than brutes" - this is a statement about the current situation. It makes no statements about why this is the case.

    "Men should be expected to exercise self-control!" this makes a statement about what should be done to rectify the problem as identified in the first statement. It effectively makes two statements: firstly, "currently men are not expected to show self-control, and that is why they do not learn to control themselves", and "if men are expected to show self-control, then they will learn not to be "little better than brutes", they will learn to be civilized, they will learn to control their savage instincts (incidentally, the presumption of "savage instincts" is not a feminist statement, that presumption more commonly comes from anti-feminists like yourself) and consequently will largely cease to be potential rapists.

    Feminist theory helps us to draw connections between cause (society's low expectations of men) and effect (men acting down to those low expectations).

    QED

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  29. Gary Norris wrote:

    "helping the oppressed and disenfranchised does not mean you are oppressing a majority"


    It does when what is demanded of the majority is no longer tolerance but the criminalization of publicly-voiced disapproval.

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  30. SnowdropExplodes wrote:

    men do not have "predatory instincts" with regards to sexuality. Men are socialised into predatory behaviour by the very prohibitions and taboos you claim protect against that behaviour.


    But those prohibitions and taboos no longer have any force in mainstream British society and haven't had for many years. So why isn't male sexual violence a thing of the past?

    How exactly does traditional sexual morality encourage predatory male behaviour?

    If we think instead of a fast-flowing river, that has a lot of power and if we are wise then we can draw on that power, experience exhilaration by communing with that power, as long as we respect it and one another. But if we try to dam such a river then sooner or later the waters will overflow, the dam will burst and devastation will ensue. Even if that doesn't happen then everything downstream of our dam will become parched and withered, dry and barren ... The same entity can be safe and harmless when it is allowed to flow free, and also dangerous and violent when it is penned in.

    OK, that's a lucid and coherent metaphor. But why should I accept that it's a correct one? After all, in certain circumstances, natural phenomena can be harmless and useful when penned in and dangerous when allowed to flow free.

    Consider:

    - Western society has in the past few decades become saturated with images of a highly sexualized nature. These can be seen on television, on cinema screens, in magazines, advertising billboards, etc.
    - These images often don't even relate specifically to sex as such - they could be advertising motor cars or chocolate. In other words, a 'pan-sexualism' has crept into the culture, whereby an erotic component is gratuitously grafted on to something that has nothing to do with sex.
    - At no point is this pervasive eroticism linked to the conception and raising of children. Quite the reverse - the possibility of conceiving a child is an annoying inconvenience that gets in the way of a free and easy hedonism. Hence the urgency with which contraceptive devices and procedures are devised and promoted.
    - As the years have passed, these images have become more and more explicit. This is in conformity with the inner logic of a consciously taboo-breaking mindset - once one sacred cow has been killed the hunt is on to find an even bigger and more sacred one to slaughter in order to achieve the same frisson. This 'drift' toward the ever more extreme can easily be confirmed by watching a 10-year-old movie whose sexual content was considered shocking in its day. Chances are it will now seem quaint, innocent even.
    - Younger age-groups are being exposed to these processes. Witness, for example, the emergence of sexualised children's toys such as the Bratz range of dolls. Observe how the so-called 'lads' mags' that took off in the 90s are regularly displayed in newsagents' where they can easily be seen by children, despite featuring soft-porn cover imagery.

    These developments are indisputable. What you think the consequences will be depends on your view of sexuality. Personally I find them extremely disquieting. I believe sexuality to be a tremendously powerful force with vast physical, psychological and spiritual ramifications. Society has a stake in it & so cannot fail to take an interest in it. In that sense it cannot be a purely private matter but must be 'legislated' for.

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  31. Snowdrop Explodes wrote:

    It effectively makes two statements: firstly, "currently men are not expected to show self-control, and that is why they do not learn to control themselves", and "if men are expected to show self-control, then they will learn not to be "little better than brutes", they will learn to be civilized, they will learn to control their savage instincts ... and consequently will largely cease to be potential rapists.

    But wasn't it precisely the sexual revolution that encouraged men to abandon the "self-control" of traditional morality?

    If you want a secular justification of traditional sexual morality, I guess one could argue along these lines:-

    - Human life is essentially social; man requires a social context in which to flourish.
    - To a certain extent social life requires individuals sacrifice immediate personal gratification for the greater good. Sometimes these sacrifices are particularly onerous - for example in wartime.
    - For this reason, society has a legitimate interest in curbing hedonistic excesses: a widespread obsession with personal gratification imperils the culture of communal self-sacrifice necessary to keep society afloat.
    - Sex brings this tension between gratification and sacrifice into particularly sharp relief: sex is intensely pleasurable yet its consequences - children - demand considerable sacrifices on the part of individuals.
    - Modern man thinks he has resolved this dilemma through contraceptive technology; contraception removes the burdonsome consequences of sex, allowing its pleasurable aspects to be freely indulged.
    - Those who hold the traditional position point out that this "uncoupling" removes a desirable check on socially corrosive hedonism.
    - Moreover, society has a legitimate interest in privileging the procreative aspect of sex; it supplies the next generation of the community.

    Regarding the latter point, it is generally acknowledged that Europe is currently facing a major demographic crisis: not enough babies are being born. And while Europeans are busy aborting and contracepting themselves out of existence, Mohammedans are steadily procreating.
    It would be ironic if decadent Westerners' rejection of traditional Christian teaching regarding continence resulted in their demographic subjugation to Islam. For believers, it might suggest God has a sense of humour.

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  32. Bronze Age Man: "But wasn't it precisely the sexual revolution that encouraged men to abandon the "self-control" of traditional morality?"

    No. The concept of 'intramarital rape' was recognised in British law very recently, and after a concerted campaign following the 'sexual revolution'. Before that, men could rape their wives as often as they felt like.

    I find it unnecessary to respond to the rest of your post; memes are passed more easily than genes. Leaving aside the fact that the hallmark of a civilised society seems to be the guarantee to women of reproductive freedom, leading to increased health, wealth and civility.

    Finally, the sex I've had recently hasn't used any contraception, and has had no chance of producing a pregnancy.

    Pwn3d, n00b.

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  33. Bronze Age Man ( i giggle when i read this) replied to something in my comment:

    Gary Norris wrote:

    "helping the oppressed and disenfranchised does not mean you are oppressing a majority"

    Bronze Age Man wrote:
    "It does when what is demanded of the majority is no longer tolerance but the criminalization of publicly-voiced disapproval."

    how is disapproval being criminalized? i don't think you understand what speech acts are and what they aren't. but i'll let the other people you're debating handle that.

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  34. Gary Norris wrote:

    how is disapproval being criminalized?

    Like this.

    And this.

    And this.

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  35. Bronze Guy, here's what the aged bigot said in the first link from above:

    “I said we had no objection to gay people, but we thought that homosexual practice was wrong and we were offended by the gay culture which the council is promoting.

    “They warned me that being discriminatory and homophobic is in line with hate crime. The phrase they used was that we were ‘walking on eggshells’. I asked the officer, if I phoned the police with a complaint that the council were discriminating against Christians would he go to interview them?”

    First, the police informed them that they were "walking on eggshells," which they are. Hardly harassment and certainly not punishment. But the article does, in fact, illustrate my initial claim that Christians want to claim that homosexual practice infringes upon their rights. More Christians arguing that they are being oppressed. Nothing new.

    The second link is a blurb about a homophobic Christian handing out typical The Gays are Sinful Lit in an public place where he knows he'll be engaged in debate. This happens worldwide in public squares at festivals and celebrations and on university campuses. He's a troublemaker, looking for trouble, so he can say he's oppressed. Nothing new.

    And I see nothing out of the ordinary with the story in the 3rd link. And from what I can tell, the home in question won their case. Seems like people who aren't actively discriminating (though they may wish they could) don't get punished.


    You will not find an example, but I'll ask again: How is disapproval being criminalized?

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  36. Amigo rich -

    If we consider the world to be sufficiently full of possibilities the chances for absolutely anything to be true, are zero.

    By-the-way, if reality didn`t exist, you wouldn`t be able to imagine it - reality is not fundamentally based upon some nugget of reason, it didn`t derive itself from first principles.
    So why do you think that the limits of your imagination and credulity represent an absolute limit on that which we cannot directly observe?
    (by the way, I like to pour water into ants nests for no particular reason, what do you suppose they would make of that?)

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  37. "Leaving aside the fact that the hallmark of a civilised society seems to be the guarantee to women of reproductive freedom, leading to increased health, wealth and civility."

    How so?

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  38. Gary Norris wrote:

    here's what the aged bigot said

    How is "aged" relevant? Are you ageist or something? Frankly, Gary, I'm disgusted to see such naked bigotry flaunted so bigotedly.

    the police informed them that they were "walking on eggshells," which they are.

    How? By expressing disapproval of homosexual acts? According to the article, such disapproval was judged to be "close to a hate crime" and worthy of police time.

    Do you agree that disapproval = hate? Do you think it was right and proper that this couple had a visit from plod?

    Hardly harassment and certainly not punishment.

    It is low-level harassment.

    But the article does, in fact, illustrate my initial claim that Christians want to claim that homosexual practice infringes upon their rights.

    Crap. Christians claim homosexual practices are sinful. The only infringement of their "rights" occurs when they're not allowed to express that opinion without some officious little twat snitching to the Thought Police. "Good work, citizen ..."

    The second link is a blurb about a homophobic Christian handing out typical The Gays are Sinful Lit in an public place where he knows he'll be engaged in debate. This happens worldwide in public squares at festivals and celebrations and on university campuses. He's a troublemaker, looking for trouble, so he can say he's oppressed. Nothing new.

    As far as I know, nobody "engaged him in debate". And if they had, that wouldn't have been a problem. The problem is that he was arrested for handing out leaflets.

    This was apparently felt to be "threatening". One Christian man handing out leaflets among crowds of homosexuals. Not a mob of Christians waving "Kill a queer for Jesus" placards surrounding one homosexual.

    And I see nothing out of the ordinary with the story in the 3rd link. And from what I can tell, the home in question won their case.

    The disturbing thing is that the case was brought in the first place. Can you not see that?


    Your use of the terms "bigot" and "homophobic" are revealing. Both words imply the motive for disapproval is irrational fear & hatred. This chimes with a common characteristic of liberals that I've noticed -- the inability to believe that any intelligent person could disagree with the liberal position.

    Liberals define goodness and rationality as liberalism. Anyone who isn't a liberal is therefore by definition wicked or stupid or suffering from some kind of psychological disorder or "phobia".

    Believe that traditional sexual morality might actually increase the sum of human happiness? You're a repressed puritanical prude. Believe traditional standards of sartorial modesty enhance the dignity and safety of women? You're a vile misogynist who clearly gets a sadistic kick out of oppressing women. Think the cultural normalization of homosexual acts has an adverse impact on society? You're nothing but a hate-filled homophobic bigot.

    The problem is that liberals tend not to think in a logical sequence from established premises. Rather they 'think' in a series of emotionally charged pictures which are typically articulated as slogans and abuse. They are the true bigots.

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  39. Why are my interesting and informative comments still not being posted?

    I was having an interesting little chat about the nature of reality and how the physical existance of infinity would neccesitate the occurence of zero- probability events. And it isn`t appearing.

    That makes me a sad Mark.

    So lets say that we accept the existence of infinity in any respect - doesn`t that means that infinity must exist in every respect?
    In that case - of absolute infinity of space time and reality - literally everything must be true at all times.

    If it is the case that infinity does not exist physically, but we accept that there is an infinite nnumber of possible outcomes , any outcome which does occur surely has a 0 percent chance of coming into being.

    That`s why it`s ridiculous to question the existence of god on the basis of rationality.

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  40. Mark wrote:

    If it is the case that infinity does not exist physically, but we accept that there is an infinite nnumber of possible outcomes

    If space & time are not infinite, how can there be an infinite number of possible outcomes?

    it`s ridiculous to question the existence of god on the basis of rationality

    Can we prove the existence of God on the basis of rationality? (Hint: Yes.)

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  41. Bronze Age Man:

    If the limits of our mind don`t represent a limit on reality, I think we have to accept that there are potentially an infinite number of explanations for reality that we are simply unaware of - perhaps can`t be aware of.

    Basically, that the world of ideas exists seperate to the physical world and is larger than it.

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  42. Amigo rich:

    What are the odds that the deity (Creator of everything, yadda, yadda, yadda) cares about about the sexuality of a partner, compared with the odds that it is all man made and untrue?

    Depends why you think He cares. You're implying a god who lays down arbitrary, oppressive rules and arbitrary, oppressive punishments for those who transgress them. The truth is that God made us in an act of selfless love -- and because He designed & made us, He knows better than we do how we best function physically and spiritually.

    Suppose a wealthy benefactor presents you with an extremely expensive and technologically advanced motor car. It's a free gift and you can do with it as you please. However, because it's such a sophisticated piece of machinery, it demands careful maintenance. Suppose, out of laziness or arrogance, you don't bother to read or heed the instruction manual, fill the car with the wrong type of fuel etc and as a result break down in the middle of nowhere. Is that the fault of your benefactor?

    God designed humans as sexual beings and designed human sexuality as a specific physical and spiritual function. If it is used in ways other than intended, bad things happen.

    The absurdity is that in 2010 we even have to treat religion with unwarranted seriousness.

    What has 2010 got to do with it? Whether a religion is true or false doesn't depend on the calendar. Or do we have some decisive piece of knowledge our ancestors lacked?

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  43. Mark:

    ... if reality didn`t exist, you wouldn`t be able to imagine it - reality is not fundamentally based upon some nugget of reason, it didn`t derive itself from first principles.

    No, but first principles do derive from reality.

    If the limits of our mind don`t represent a limit on reality, I think we have to accept that there are potentially an infinite number of explanations for reality that we are simply unaware of - perhaps can`t be aware of.

    Our minds may not be able to apprehend the totality of reality, but it doesn't follow that they can have no grasp of it. The laws of logic, for example, are an accurate reflection of reality (don't you think?)

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  44. Do first principles derive from reality? I`d say our ideas sometimes happen to conform to reality rather than being based neccesarily based upon it. For example Euclidean and Hyperbolic geometry - we don`t know which one most closely describes reality and yet we have both. Same with research into the 20th dimension or whatever.

    The laws of logic, while having some localised applications, are an inadaquate tool to answer questions such as the true nature of reality, where it all came from and if God exists.

    For example - the idea of God as an infinitely powerfull being is illogical. If God has infinite power he is infinite - he is everything. And yet in order to be everything, he must not be God at the same time as he is God.
    Fortunately, every other explanation makes as little sense.

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  45. I wish I'd found this piece earlier, it goes a long way towards healing the hurt of Jenkins's unpleasant essay.

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  46. Mark:

    the idea of God as an infinitely powerfull being is illogical. If God has infinite power he is infinite - he is everything. And yet in order to be everything, he must not be God at the same time as he is God.

    "Everything" is the totality of finite things, which is not infinity (at least not as the term is applied to God). The divine infinity is not unending extension or multiplication but transcendence.

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  47. What do you mean Bronze Age Man?

    That God is logical but imperceptable?

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  48. Mark:

    "God is logical but imperceptable?"

    You could put it that way, yes.

    God is "imperceptible" insofar as He is pure incorporeal spirit, not a physical entity within the universe that can be subjected to analysis but outside space & time altogether.

    He is "logical" in two senses. Firstly, His nature & acts in no way contradict the laws of logic, which are embedded in created reality itself, which in turn is grounded in God. They are, if you like, a manifestation of God's own essential nature.

    He is also "logical" in the sense that His existence can be proved by the exercise of human reason. The classic example of this would be the various proofs of God's existence offered by St Thomas Aquinas (the 900lb gorilla of Roman Catholic theology).

    Note, though, that these philosophical proofs only demonstrate the necessary existence of a transcendent monotheistic deity. They don't claim to prove the existence of the Christian God. According to aquinas, specifically Christian doctrines such as the Trinity, Incarnation, etc cannot be discovered or demonstrated by unaided human reason. They are a matter of divine revelation accepted on faith.

    Which is not to say that such an act of faith is itself inherently irrational or unreasonable. A Catholic would argue that acceptance of the Catholic Church's claim to be the transmitter of divinely revealed truth can indeed be defended by a chain of reasoning. However this process of assent would be more akin to a juror weighing the evidence to reach a conclusion 'beyond reasonable doubt', rather than a mathematical, philosophical or scientific proof ...

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  49. I`m not sure that that is a proof of God as most people would understand God.

    You`re assuming that the laws of reason apply not only universally within reality, but also outside of it as well, then naming the inexplicable root cause of things as God.
    But the cause is no easier to comprehend than the irrational universe. Do we have good reason to prefer one over the other?
    If we can`t imagine or understand either concept are we even able to make such a choice?

    My hunch is that existence is either everything or nothing, that the infinite is not rational but that 0 perhaps is.

    If we look at things rationally, we don`t exist.
    (If things are finite they must end and be as if they never were, if infinite we are already reduced to nothing in the infinite stretches of time and space.)

    So, as an optimist, i`m hoping for nonsensical infinity.

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  50. Mark:

    "You`re assuming that the laws of reason apply not only universally within reality, but also outside of it as well"

    There is no "outside" of reality. Everything that is, is real. God and the universe are both reality.

    "If we look at things rationally, we don`t exist."

    If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that, since we manifestly DO exist, it follows that reality cannot be rational ...?

    Isn't it more likely that the initial chain of reasoning that led to the conclusion that we don't exist was simply mistaken?

    Your position is untenable. You have reasoned your way to the conclusion that reality is irrational. Familiar philosophical paradoxes follow. If reality is, in fact, irrational, how can you have any faith in the process of reasoning that led you to that conclusion? If the conclusion is correct, the reasoning that led to it cannot be correct. If the reasoning is correct, the conclusion that it leads to cannot be correct.

    Such paradoxes are a sure sign, not that the universe is irrational, but that our reasoning is erroneous in this case.

    "...as an optimist ..."

    Glad to hear it!

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  51. "There is no "outside" of reality. Everything that is, is real. God and the universe are both reality."

    Fair enough - by "reality" here, I meant the physical world.
    Would you say that concepts or ideas, while not neccesarily part of the physical world, have a "real" existance in the same way as God? If we can create ideas which are inherently illogical, then it follows that reality is not altogether rational.

    "Isn't it more likely that the initial chain of reasoning that led to the conclusion that we don't exist was simply mistaken?"

    Probably, but it seems a little unfair to say that without pointing out where the error is!

    "Your position is untenable. You have reasoned your way to the conclusion that reality is irrational. Familiar philosophical paradoxes follow."
    I`m not sure that that need concern me - if logic isn`t internally coherent it follows that reality isn`t neccesarily logical - in which case we should expect paradoxes to exist within reality.
    So we can be here and yet not etc. etc.

    Though I suppose the big question is whether an irrational world can be both rational and irrational at the same time.

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  52. Mark:

    "Would you say that concepts or ideas, while not neccesarily part of the physical world, have a "real" existance in the same way as God"

    Not in precisely the same way - God is self-sufficient, whereas concepts, ideas, thoughts etc depend on us for their existence. However they are real.

    "If we can create ideas which are inherently illogical, then it follows that reality is not altogether rational."

    Interesting ...

    I think one would have to say that we cannot create an illogical concept. Of course we can string together the words "a", "square" and "circle" but those words, whether on paper or in our heads, are merely a cluster of free-floating symbols. They don't signify anything. We can write or think the phrase "a square circle" but we cannot actually conceive of a square circle, any more than we can conceive of 2+2=5.

    "Isn't it more likely that the initial chain of reasoning that led to the conclusion that we don't exist was simply mistaken?"

    Probably, but it seems a little unfair to say that without pointing out where the error is!"

    Well, I don't understand how your assertion that "If things are finite they must end and be as if they never were" leads one to conclude that "we don't exist". Leaving aside questions of an afterlife, it is not immediately clear how the finite, transitory nature of existence negates that existence.

    "... if logic isn`t internally coherent it follows that reality isn`t neccesarily logical - in which case we should expect paradoxes to exist within reality.
    So we can be here and yet not etc. etc.

    Though I suppose the big question is whether an irrational world can be both rational and irrational at the same time"


    "... [The] peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. ... [O]ne set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. ...

    There is a thought that stops thought. That is the only thought that ought to be stopped. That is the ultimate evil against which all religious authority was aimed. It only appears at the end of decadent ages like our own ... [I]t was against this remote ruin that all the military systems in religion were originally ranked and ruled. The creeds and the crusades, the hierarchies and the horrible persecutions were not organized, as is ignorantly said, for the suppression of reason. They were organized for the difficult defence of reason. Man, by a blind instinct, knew that if once things were wildly questioned, reason could be questioned first. The authority of priests to absolve, the authority of popes to define the authority, even of inquisitors to terrify: these were all only dark defences erected round one central authority, more undemonstrable, more supernatural than all -- the authority of a man to think. We know now that this is so; we have no excuse for not knowing it. For we can hear scepticism crashing through the old ring of authorities, and at the same moment we can see reason swaying upon her throne. In so far as religion is gone, reason is going. For they are both of the same primary and authoritative kind. They are both methods of proof which cannot themselves be proved. And in the act of destroying the idea of Divine authority we have largely destroyed the idea of that human authority by which we do a long-division sum. With a long and sustained tug we have attempted to pull the mitre off pontifical man; and his head has come off with it."


    - GK Chesterton, "The Suicide of Thought", Orthodoxy

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  53. It's been an age since I've checked my blog feed, but just like to say thank god someone else felt like that reading Simon Jenkin's article a few weeks ago.

    The man's a reptile.

    Anyway, loved your piece in the ES the other day.

    Keep it up:)

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  54. Last I heard, it was beneath our ambition as a country to tolerate recalcitrant, ugly prejudice in any part of our infrastructure


    WTF.

    So there is a set ambition for our country is there?

    Where is it written and when did I sign up for it?

    Also, this post is pack full of your own recalcitrant, ugly prejudice

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  55. Bronze Age Man:

    Well I guess that's the old "tree falling in the woods" question answered then.

    Since we will leave no trace of our existence it's not necessary for something to be witnessed for it to exist. I guess that also means that rather than being dependent upon us for their existence ideas which have never been thought also exist. So really, I suppose my inability to think of an irrational idea is no reason to consider them not to exist.

    As wonderfully eloquent as he is, I think Mr. Chesterton might be wrong on that one. Whether or not the world is based on reason I suspect people will always think in the same way.

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  56. Bronze Age Man1 March 2010 at 22:45

    Mark:

    Since we will leave no trace of our existence it's not necessary for something to be witnessed for it to exist.

    Witnessed by whom?

    I guess that also means that rather than being dependent upon us for their existence ideas which have never been thought also exist.

    What is an 'idea which has never been thought'?

    So really, I suppose my inability to think of an irrational idea is no reason to consider them not to exist.

    Not sure if this is relevant but it's entertaining:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8lRpr_lpBk

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  57. I generally disagree with you, Penny.

    In the US, where I live, exclusively "straight" dating websites get sued for discrimination but exclusively "gay" ones do not.

    White males get charged with "hate crimes" when he attacks a black male because he's black but blacks never get charged with hate crimes when they attack whites because they're white.

    Is this not discrimination?

    In my opinion arguing that banning gay marriage discriminates against homosexuals is kind of like arguing that banning arson discriminates against pyromaniacs or banning stealing discriminates against kleptomanics.

    What does homosexuality do for society, other than spread AIDS and disease that cost all of us money?

    If I remember correctly, compared to 1900:
    *babies are 8 times more likely to be born out of wedlock, despite better birth control.
    *certain crime rates are almost 1000% higher than 1900.
    *finally, you criticize religion. But is banning pork because it's against God's will really any different then banning whaling because it's against Gaia's will?

    On some issues, we may be more tolerant than we used to be. Homosexuality for example. But on other issues, we're less tolerant. Smoking for example. Both smokers and homosexuals cost me money in health care, both believe they have no choice but to commit these acts. So are we really more tolerant? Seams like liberals only want the things they like to be tolerated.

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