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Friday, May 30, 2014 - 3:17pmSanction this postReply
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Another blog whose link escapes me at the moment noted that the gay marriage issue is merely a red herring that distracts from the true eroder of traditional marriage, namely straight divorce.

 

There are obviously many other factors at play, but really, with only perhaps one percent of all marriages likely to be gay in the future, as contrasted against the rampant rates of straight divorce, can any honest person try to pin the blame for family erosion on gays?

 

It would be nice to see a formal Atlas Society publication on marriage and family for the new millennium.  As technologies improve to allow almost anyone to reproduce asexually, will marriage go extinct completely?  Will Republicans be honest enough to confront and embrace these trends?

 

Meanwhile, I see more and more reports of polyamory gaining a foothold in the United States so I predict it will become a hot topic within ten years.

 

(Edited by Luke Setzer on 5/30, 3:19pm)



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Post 1

Friday, May 30, 2014 - 7:55pmSanction this postReply
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Ed,

 

Couldn't agree more!

 

Too many in the GOP take the position that the social conservatives are not going to really hurt things because their candidate won't get elected, and in the meantime they are hard campaign workers and big contributors so they want to keep them around.

 

Most of the GOP get embarrassed by the extreme idiocy of some of the religious right, but won't attack them for fear they will look like they are attacking Mom and apple pie. The only real hope is that the libertarian and libertarian-conservatives who are in office or running for office will make the attacks and set an example, but they are a minority and desperately want the support of religious folk.

 

But if the religious right isn't seriously marginalized in some fashion, they will be the gift that keeps on giving to the progressives. The progressives are only able to win, even in today's liberal world, as long as they can keep painting the GOP as the party of religious nutcakes, racists, supporters of the rich, and war-mongers. There are great arguments for all of those... except for the religious nutcakes.

 

I sense that the country might be ripe for a swing in the direction of libertarian thought - especially since Obama and the progressives have badly overreached and appear to be leaving the Overton Window to the left. But then, I might just be doing what Charlie Brown did when he'd hold the football for Lucy.

 

What could make the progressive totally unappealing would be to reveal the general nature of their dishonest approach to politics. They don't have that many tricks, just lots of imaginative applications. They keep using the race card. They use identity politics. They use trojan horse legislation (like ObamaCare - you have to bring that horse inside the gates to find out what's inside it). They always dress up their drives for control as something good for children, or the poor, or the working man, or sick, or the planet - but they are really just further moves to have an elite in Washington control all things. Their use of environmentalism as a ploy for statism.

 

If their tricks could be broadly exposed to the point that in a debate when the good guy said, "There you go again," everyone would laugh because they'd see that the progressive was just trotting out another already exposed dishonest trick.

 

I really believe that the core dishonesty of all progressive politics is the edge letting them get away with as much as they have, but in the long run is their greatest weakness.

 

Just like it is the core dishonesty of the religious right that lets them get away with what they do.  The dishonesty of calling forbidding two people the same rights as others because they are gay just a matter of the definition of marriage.  This is NOT about dictionary usage, it is about laws like the Jim Crow laws that prohibited interracial marriages.  And family values is just code for getting government to pass laws based upon biblical interpretations - just as biblical interpretations is the only reason for their drive to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her body (Taliban-lite).  



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Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 9:51amSanction this postReply
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Luke,

that's exactly what I thought ten years ago when they first proposed legalizing gay marriages: "Great! Now I can marry my wife - but what about the other wife! Now I have to choose?!?" :D

 

Steve,

I don't think it's a question of progressives vs. libertarians - the basis is still the sheeple who want to be lied to and told that their way of blahhhing is the right way. If the libertarians were to stoop to the same low practices, they could lie just as well as the progressives do and get elected and implement any laws they saw fit. Sadly they can't, a personal failure I'm prone to myself, so we leave the sheeple to the progressives who are better at promising the sheeple exactly what they want, yet always failing to deliver, and nobody calling them on the non-delivery. And it doesn't matter how often they fail or are exposed or ridiculed: as long as they can keep the lie going or find the next big lie they will be re-elected.

Example .... Ayn Rand: now I know she'd have found the whole idea of becoming president herself totally ridiculous, but bear with me. If she promised the sheeple that objectivism would lead them straight to heaven, that objectivism would be the straight way to live, that objectivism would save the masses with the capitalism it would create, she would have been elected president of the world, not just one backsliding country. She could have created capitalism with a capital C, abolished marriage in toto, completely separated state from church, and nobody would have called her on her promises not delivered, as long as she'd have kept repeating: marry my ideas as they are the holy grail for fulfilling your happy lives. Of course she also did not do too well with lies and promises to herd the sheeple - she would have kicked each sheeple in it's furry tush to keep it moving to the right pen. Or was it the left - I never get that right ...

The sheeple themselves would need to change in order to bring any political and / or moral change about - and I don't see that happening any time soon ...



Post 3

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 10:56amSanction this postReply
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Vera,

 

I think you've taken the "sheeple" concept to far.  When I travel about the United States I meet a large variety of people. Some are dedicated sheeple - even militant about it.  But they are a fairly small minority.  Most people are reasonably ethical and work for a living and their worst political flaw is that they are low information voters who have believed a lot of the lies they have been told.


They have been told by all the different entertainment outlets - TV, movies, and print, nearly all the news sources, by most of the intellectuals, and nearly every university that progressivism is the new and correct approach to all things political.

 

When they start to hear the truth many of them will come around. Most of the people don't believe what politicians say, and they know they are being lied to from that sosurce, but they aren't following the political scene as closely as we do and they aren't students of the principles involved.  And right now they aren't being offered good political choices. Hey, they have a life and that is where they are focused.

 

People are voting in one direction or the other, and they are chosing between what is offered. The only voting that matters, as we know, are those votes that move us towards progressivism or towards libertarianism. Because those are the two opposing forces battling for and against liberty today.

 

The real dividing line is between those who would knowingly vote for a severe decrease in personal liberty for everyone as long as they get what they personally want (entitlements, union-based sinceture, etc.) and those who when they do see that something would harm the country economically and reduce our liberty will vote against it even if it decreases funding to some things they believe ought to funded. That is the vote we need and I think that the good guys would still win. But it will take more education for the good guys to see what is really happening. Lies are working, but only so long as they aren't being exposed.

 

Dishonesty has several components. One is personal to the individual and the loss of self-esteem when it is practiced. Another is to the society that is harmed to the degree that dishonesty has to countered or endured. There is a short-term gain for someone who lies to get their way, but only if you don't add the loss of self-esteem into the equation. Long term there is a great loss because it is a quicksand like foundation to construct anything on. A person ends up being held hostage by their past lies. And to shatter then it is only necessary to make their lies stand out boldy. It destroys their credibility at the same time it destroys their arguments.

 

When you take the "sheeple" concept to the place that it becomes synonymous with human nature you get into trouble because that is everyone - you and I included - and we both reject that. So, sheepleness is a learned, adopted approach and not hard wired. I maintain that only a tiny portion of the population are dedicated and unchangable in their sheepleness. The rest are potentially good people who only need a fair shake from the educational, entertainment, and news medias to be able and willing to vote the right way.



Post 4

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 11:40amSanction this postReply
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I think you've taken the "sheeple" concept to far.

Agreed :)

However if the 'other 80%' so easily have the wool pulled over their eyes, the result is the same: bad shepherding.

But you're right - clarifying exactly where they went wrong is more efficient to future improvement then lumping them together with the 20% active and willing sheeple. Sadly I have neither the inclination nor the energey to steer those 80% right. I can barely do it on the .0001% I'm actively engaging - and myself of course. So I'll tune down the sheeple - promise :)

PS: I'm most certainly not taking myself out of the herd - I am after all Homo Sapiens Sapiens whether I like it or not ;)

The rest are potentially good people who only need a fair shake from the educational, entertainment, and news medias to be able and willing to vote the right way.

That point we'll have to agree to disagree: if the 80% 'good people' are in constant need of fairness by the world around to guide them in the right direction, chances are not looking up ... just as humans have a potential for spectacular greatness, they also have the potential for pure evil - not to mention the masses gravitating along somewhere in the middle of laziness, disinterest, or are quite simply overwhelmed by the complexities they have to keep up with to live their human lives.

 

Would it be fair to say that 'a value no longer understood or unreachable without outside help is no longer an individual value but a value of society'?



Post 5

Saturday, May 31, 2014 - 11:52amSanction this postReply
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Addendum for the last question:

 

'I love my mother, I love my wife, I love my daughter - they individually bring value to my individual life' >> individual value of family


'I have no clue how a woman can love a woman, or how you can love more than one person, or hand over your daughters to someone else to raise, but with the right education, societal acceptance and political validation of such a relationship I could understand and accept it' >> societal value of a family



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