Its the oldest social institution in the book too. 🙂
Which is why you see movies about Larry Flynt as heroic free speech activists instead of people like, for example, Laura Schlessinger.
I should start up a small home-based business that pokes a finger in there eye of half a dozen leftist taboos, place the business operations right next to my bed, and hold the Left to its government-out-of-the-bedroom rhetoric.
So why is it that so many think that the State, or other people generally, should keep its (or their) nose or noses out of your business in every sphere except sexuality? Incidentally, this applies to many other physical pleasures too; for example, there are plenty of people around who are willing to go along with all manner of rapacious business practises but also think it is their right to tell you whether you can drink alcohol or not. Many of those same people also think it perfectly OK to intellectually cripple children by feeding their brains a diet of illogical rubbish in lieu of science education, too.
Couldn’t be anything to do with a certain 4000-year-old book, could it?
Creepy, and it makes a lot of sense. The left have become utterly intolerant of different views, the most flamingly unashamed racists, complete control freaks on every facet of personal or private life EXCEPT sexuality (and drugs to a degree) where they are willing to support people’s right to do anything they like.
Bread and circuses to entertain the masses?
I would invite those making generalizations about the Left to read this:
It is a take how Judge Sonya Sotomayor (Obama’s Supreme Court pick) ruled regarding religious liberty: “www.ou.org/public_affairs/weblog_single/53915”
Fletcher Christian: if you are speaking of the “4,000 year old book” I think you are speaking of, you are making a tiresome, stale canard. There is nowhere in the Bible that instructs parents to “intellectually cripple” their children, and Jesus made water into wine, not iced tea. Though there are some Christian denominations that discourage or bar their members from drinking alcohol, there isn’t any theologically-based ban (unlike a certain other major religion that we are not supposed to name — I’ll call it “Voldemortism”). I do believe that Prohibition was as much a “scientific” Progressive movement as it was religious — even more so (somewhat like today’s promotion of “green” living, as a hairshirt being imposed on the masses whether they want to wear one or not; Al Gore is today’s Carrie Nation).
Getting back to the subject, the reason why so many people chant “government out of our bedrooms” (i.e., their sex habits) yet seem quite willing for the state to prohibit other “bad” behavior is because people are encouraged today to think of themselves as “in-duh-viduals” separate from everyone else, so it’s okay to bar your neighbor from, say, building an addition onto his home because of zoning laws, but it’s not okay for the government to prevent you from having an orgy in your home. See, your neighbor not being allowed to build an extra bedroom for his mother-in-law or his new child is okay, because his problem doesn’t affect you directly (and all that construction noise would!) — he can just buy another house if he wants more room. (Never mind if he can’t afford a whole new house, or if he likes the house he’s in and doesn’t want to disrupt his family’s life. Your peace of mind is paramount!) But an orgy, that’s you Exploring Your Sexuality(tm), which we are told is one of the most important things ever. Also it’s great education for your kids when they come downstairs in the middle of the night to get a snack and find you, your wife, and your entire bowling league team making the naked pretzel in the living room. It’ll be a great opportunity to lecture your child on polyamory. It would be wrong of the government to interfere in your child’s education — your child would be intellectually stunted!
Bob-1, I read the article you linked to and I find it interesting that two of the four “religious freedoms” Sotomayor upheld were both due to people in the prison system apparently picking and choosing or just making up their own religious rules to follow. (Concerning the Santeria followers who wanted to wear their beads — I grew up in Miami and am familiar with the “colorful” practices of Santeria practitioners, such as leaving dead chickens on the courthouse steps to influence the outcome of trials within and so on. Were the prisoners also allowed chickens to raise and use for sacrifice? How about goats? I lived next to a house where a beautiful white goat with yellow horns was being raised. One day the goat was gone. We all knew what happened to that goat. I hope they at least made a good curry after.)
As for the Muslim who made up his own special feast — she said he should be allowed his feast because he “sincerely believed” it was part of Islam? WTF? What does “sincerely believe” have to do with anything? What if he sincerely believed that Islam meant he should run the prison? Would that be okay with Ms. Sotomayor?
OK then, Andrea, I’ll buy some of that. Why, then, is it almost exclusively religious organisations that want to ban booze in the first place? Is it because they hate the idea that someone else might be having fun, perhaps?
As for the intellectual crippling of children: “God made Man in his own image” (and other similar statements) and the whole bit about the world being created in six days are in that book. Some people might not have the desire, or mental flexibility, to take the first as a metaphor and the second as a myth that was the best that illiterate Bronze Age peasants could do. Strangely enough, just about all those people are religious.
If there is one young-Earth creationist atheist on Earth, I’d be surprised. I doubt there are many atheist prohibitionists, either. And I am absolutely convinced that if Jesus walked into a typical Southern Baptist church he would want to tear the entire place down with his bare hands. Much more the studio of a televangelist. After all, he’s done it before.
Andrea, I think “sincere belief” has everything to do with religion. Obviously there has to be limits on religious freedom or the inmates would all observe the “I must be free right now” religion. If your instincts are to limit inmates’ freedom more than Judge Sotomayor, does that give you any data on the question of whether the Left is worse than the Right on religious freedom of the no-sexual variety? In any case, even if you disagree with Sotomayor’s conclusions, the good news for you is this: if she will protect even an inmate’s religious freedom, she will protect yours too.
…the good news for you is this: if she will protect even an inmate’s religious freedom, she will protect yours too.
How do we know that? Why wouldn’t she have more empathy for some religions than others?
Bread and circuses to entertain the masses?
Evidently the bread is for raising penicillin cultures.
Rand, her argument was that the tenets of any particular religion don’t matter in considering government’s interaction with an individual – a person’s sincere religious beliefs are what matters, even if those beliefs are unique to that person. This makes me think she isn’t inclined to favor any particular religion, as religion is traditionally defined. She is certain to favor sincere individual religious beliefs that don’t infringe on either the rights of others or the needs of the state (eg the need to imprison some people). I may have missed your point. In any case, I think her rulings are a good sign for the cause of liberty.
My view is that many aspects of liberalism (and a fair number of belief packages outside that broad area) are created and advocated by promiscuous, intelligent males primarily in order to increase the opportunities for sex. A few (like feminism, free love, and multiculturalism) encourage women to be more promiscuous and hence provide more sexual opportunity for highly active males. These often have challenges to deter least fit males. For example, the rules of sexual discrimination (especially those that originate on a college campus) make it more difficult for most males to approach a female in order to have sex. Yet at the same time, the sociopath who can fake well caring, providing attention, and follows the superficial rules of feminism has little trouble putting notches in the belt while his targets futilely search for “Mr. Right” in all the wrong places.
Others with little purpose like post-modernism and nihilism are in my view raw demonstrations of sexual fitness similar to squandering money on a big party or fancy car.
Most ideologies in my view have a structure similar to the popularity hierarchy in a high school. A core, sexually active group generates the ideology and controls any changes in the belief system. A larger tier parrots the core group and are the enforcers of the ideology. Outsiders are either treated politely, if they could be potential recruits or else hostilely shunned as pariah.
There are plenty of examples where these social structures appear to some degree: environmentalism, most forms of socialism (Marxism is a notable example), psychiatry in the early years, Cubism and Dadaism, academia (fraternities for example). Even some packages that aren’t traditionally considered liberal, like objectivism and some religious cults with a charismatic leader (Islam is a notorious example).
As I see it, if informal, sexual access to females is desired by the group that shapes the beliefs of the ideology, then sexual freedom is a direct though not unique way to reach that goal. That is something that doesn’t really exist in conservative ideologies. No matter what you can say about neo-conservativism (for example), it hasn’t resulted in a vast increase of booty for the alleged ideological leaders of the system. William Kristol doesn’t get laid far more often because he’s a famed neo-conservative ideologue. Karl Rove or Dick Cheney do not maintain harems.
A final indication of the nature of certain ideologies is the manner in which they insult enemies. Sexual insults in my view seem to be more the domain of the liberal. We might recall, for example, certain people on these forums referring to the recent “tea party” tax protest groups as “tea baggers” (which turns out to be a crude sexual insult in the right crowd). Sexual based assaults seem also more common. For example, the topless photos of the beauty contestant who opinioned against gay marriage. It seems to me that groups who routinely insult or attack sexually are more obsessed with sex than those that don’t.
Wow. Wow! Karl, that’s such a different view of the world than the one I have that I’m really surprised. I dated a variety of women with an eye toward marriage for about 10 years, and this stuff just never seemed to come up at all!
I usually talked about politics on the first date, and it never seemed to matter what I said or what my date believed: conservative, liberal, whatever – as long as they liked to argue, we clicked. You know, the only time belief systems mattered at all was when I tried dating someone who believed in new age spiritual “energy work”. I confess I masked my skepticism in order to enjoy some nookie. It was fun, and I guess I was fooling myself about our long-term prospects in order to just have a good time. But then I slipped up. She was casting my “bad energy” into a plastic pail. I suggested using a metal bucket instead. She asked why, I said metal would conduct electricity better, she realized that I believed in electrons and science and stuff, and she dumped me. 🙂
Its the oldest social institution in the book too. 🙂
Which is why you see movies about Larry Flynt as heroic free speech activists instead of people like, for example, Laura Schlessinger.
I should start up a small home-based business that pokes a finger in there eye of half a dozen leftist taboos, place the business operations right next to my bed, and hold the Left to its government-out-of-the-bedroom rhetoric.
So why is it that so many think that the State, or other people generally, should keep its (or their) nose or noses out of your business in every sphere except sexuality? Incidentally, this applies to many other physical pleasures too; for example, there are plenty of people around who are willing to go along with all manner of rapacious business practises but also think it is their right to tell you whether you can drink alcohol or not. Many of those same people also think it perfectly OK to intellectually cripple children by feeding their brains a diet of illogical rubbish in lieu of science education, too.
Couldn’t be anything to do with a certain 4000-year-old book, could it?
Creepy, and it makes a lot of sense. The left have become utterly intolerant of different views, the most flamingly unashamed racists, complete control freaks on every facet of personal or private life EXCEPT sexuality (and drugs to a degree) where they are willing to support people’s right to do anything they like.
Bread and circuses to entertain the masses?
I would invite those making generalizations about the Left to read this:
It is a take how Judge Sonya Sotomayor (Obama’s Supreme Court pick) ruled regarding religious liberty: “www.ou.org/public_affairs/weblog_single/53915”
Fletcher Christian: if you are speaking of the “4,000 year old book” I think you are speaking of, you are making a tiresome, stale canard. There is nowhere in the Bible that instructs parents to “intellectually cripple” their children, and Jesus made water into wine, not iced tea. Though there are some Christian denominations that discourage or bar their members from drinking alcohol, there isn’t any theologically-based ban (unlike a certain other major religion that we are not supposed to name — I’ll call it “Voldemortism”). I do believe that Prohibition was as much a “scientific” Progressive movement as it was religious — even more so (somewhat like today’s promotion of “green” living, as a hairshirt being imposed on the masses whether they want to wear one or not; Al Gore is today’s Carrie Nation).
Getting back to the subject, the reason why so many people chant “government out of our bedrooms” (i.e., their sex habits) yet seem quite willing for the state to prohibit other “bad” behavior is because people are encouraged today to think of themselves as “in-duh-viduals” separate from everyone else, so it’s okay to bar your neighbor from, say, building an addition onto his home because of zoning laws, but it’s not okay for the government to prevent you from having an orgy in your home. See, your neighbor not being allowed to build an extra bedroom for his mother-in-law or his new child is okay, because his problem doesn’t affect you directly (and all that construction noise would!) — he can just buy another house if he wants more room. (Never mind if he can’t afford a whole new house, or if he likes the house he’s in and doesn’t want to disrupt his family’s life. Your peace of mind is paramount!) But an orgy, that’s you Exploring Your Sexuality(tm), which we are told is one of the most important things ever. Also it’s great education for your kids when they come downstairs in the middle of the night to get a snack and find you, your wife, and your entire bowling league team making the naked pretzel in the living room. It’ll be a great opportunity to lecture your child on polyamory. It would be wrong of the government to interfere in your child’s education — your child would be intellectually stunted!
Bob-1, I read the article you linked to and I find it interesting that two of the four “religious freedoms” Sotomayor upheld were both due to people in the prison system apparently picking and choosing or just making up their own religious rules to follow. (Concerning the Santeria followers who wanted to wear their beads — I grew up in Miami and am familiar with the “colorful” practices of Santeria practitioners, such as leaving dead chickens on the courthouse steps to influence the outcome of trials within and so on. Were the prisoners also allowed chickens to raise and use for sacrifice? How about goats? I lived next to a house where a beautiful white goat with yellow horns was being raised. One day the goat was gone. We all knew what happened to that goat. I hope they at least made a good curry after.)
As for the Muslim who made up his own special feast — she said he should be allowed his feast because he “sincerely believed” it was part of Islam? WTF? What does “sincerely believe” have to do with anything? What if he sincerely believed that Islam meant he should run the prison? Would that be okay with Ms. Sotomayor?
OK then, Andrea, I’ll buy some of that. Why, then, is it almost exclusively religious organisations that want to ban booze in the first place? Is it because they hate the idea that someone else might be having fun, perhaps?
As for the intellectual crippling of children: “God made Man in his own image” (and other similar statements) and the whole bit about the world being created in six days are in that book. Some people might not have the desire, or mental flexibility, to take the first as a metaphor and the second as a myth that was the best that illiterate Bronze Age peasants could do. Strangely enough, just about all those people are religious.
If there is one young-Earth creationist atheist on Earth, I’d be surprised. I doubt there are many atheist prohibitionists, either. And I am absolutely convinced that if Jesus walked into a typical Southern Baptist church he would want to tear the entire place down with his bare hands. Much more the studio of a televangelist. After all, he’s done it before.
Andrea, I think “sincere belief” has everything to do with religion. Obviously there has to be limits on religious freedom or the inmates would all observe the “I must be free right now” religion. If your instincts are to limit inmates’ freedom more than Judge Sotomayor, does that give you any data on the question of whether the Left is worse than the Right on religious freedom of the no-sexual variety? In any case, even if you disagree with Sotomayor’s conclusions, the good news for you is this: if she will protect even an inmate’s religious freedom, she will protect yours too.
…the good news for you is this: if she will protect even an inmate’s religious freedom, she will protect yours too.
How do we know that? Why wouldn’t she have more empathy for some religions than others?
Bread and circuses to entertain the masses?
Evidently the bread is for raising penicillin cultures.
Rand, her argument was that the tenets of any particular religion don’t matter in considering government’s interaction with an individual – a person’s sincere religious beliefs are what matters, even if those beliefs are unique to that person. This makes me think she isn’t inclined to favor any particular religion, as religion is traditionally defined. She is certain to favor sincere individual religious beliefs that don’t infringe on either the rights of others or the needs of the state (eg the need to imprison some people). I may have missed your point. In any case, I think her rulings are a good sign for the cause of liberty.
My view is that many aspects of liberalism (and a fair number of belief packages outside that broad area) are created and advocated by promiscuous, intelligent males primarily in order to increase the opportunities for sex. A few (like feminism, free love, and multiculturalism) encourage women to be more promiscuous and hence provide more sexual opportunity for highly active males. These often have challenges to deter least fit males. For example, the rules of sexual discrimination (especially those that originate on a college campus) make it more difficult for most males to approach a female in order to have sex. Yet at the same time, the sociopath who can fake well caring, providing attention, and follows the superficial rules of feminism has little trouble putting notches in the belt while his targets futilely search for “Mr. Right” in all the wrong places.
Others with little purpose like post-modernism and nihilism are in my view raw demonstrations of sexual fitness similar to squandering money on a big party or fancy car.
Most ideologies in my view have a structure similar to the popularity hierarchy in a high school. A core, sexually active group generates the ideology and controls any changes in the belief system. A larger tier parrots the core group and are the enforcers of the ideology. Outsiders are either treated politely, if they could be potential recruits or else hostilely shunned as pariah.
There are plenty of examples where these social structures appear to some degree: environmentalism, most forms of socialism (Marxism is a notable example), psychiatry in the early years, Cubism and Dadaism, academia (fraternities for example). Even some packages that aren’t traditionally considered liberal, like objectivism and some religious cults with a charismatic leader (Islam is a notorious example).
As I see it, if informal, sexual access to females is desired by the group that shapes the beliefs of the ideology, then sexual freedom is a direct though not unique way to reach that goal. That is something that doesn’t really exist in conservative ideologies. No matter what you can say about neo-conservativism (for example), it hasn’t resulted in a vast increase of booty for the alleged ideological leaders of the system. William Kristol doesn’t get laid far more often because he’s a famed neo-conservative ideologue. Karl Rove or Dick Cheney do not maintain harems.
A final indication of the nature of certain ideologies is the manner in which they insult enemies. Sexual insults in my view seem to be more the domain of the liberal. We might recall, for example, certain people on these forums referring to the recent “tea party” tax protest groups as “tea baggers” (which turns out to be a crude sexual insult in the right crowd). Sexual based assaults seem also more common. For example, the topless photos of the beauty contestant who opinioned against gay marriage. It seems to me that groups who routinely insult or attack sexually are more obsessed with sex than those that don’t.
Wow. Wow! Karl, that’s such a different view of the world than the one I have that I’m really surprised. I dated a variety of women with an eye toward marriage for about 10 years, and this stuff just never seemed to come up at all!
I usually talked about politics on the first date, and it never seemed to matter what I said or what my date believed: conservative, liberal, whatever – as long as they liked to argue, we clicked. You know, the only time belief systems mattered at all was when I tried dating someone who believed in new age spiritual “energy work”. I confess I masked my skepticism in order to enjoy some nookie. It was fun, and I guess I was fooling myself about our long-term prospects in order to just have a good time. But then I slipped up. She was casting my “bad energy” into a plastic pail. I suggested using a metal bucket instead. She asked why, I said metal would conduct electricity better, she realized that I believed in electrons and science and stuff, and she dumped me. 🙂