Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Professor Volokh takes on the “ick factor”

Posted: December 13, 2010 by datechguy in culture, the courts
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Way back in the early days of the Blog I talked about Gay Marriage and Richard Cohen’s self=righteous hit piece:

Personally on a religious level I can’t support gay marriage but this is not a valid argument for a non-religious person. On a non-religious level it seems to me you can not rationally say that gay marriage is ok and should be legal without also allowing either polygamy and incest between consenting adults. Both have a longer and more accepted cultural history worldwide.

And PLEASE don’t give me the “ick” factor argument about these other things being accepted. Ick is just an argument about culture. It is the same argument that one would have heard concerning gay marriage less that 20 years ago. It is particularly galling when gay people are subject to state sponsored murder in places like Iran and ick is invoked beside Islam.

Via Glenn we have Eugene Volokh being a lawyer with some interesting items in the news has expanded on this bigtime:

(1) Should it be illegal, and, if so, exactly why? Is it just because it’s immoral? Because legalizing incest would, by making a future sexual relationship more speakable and legitimate, potentially affect the family relationship even while the child is underage (the view to which I tentatively incline)? Because it involves a heightened risk of birth defects (a view I’m skeptical about, given that we don’t criminalize sex by carriers of genes that make serious hereditary disease much more likely than incest does)?

(2) Given Lawrence v. Texas — and similar pre–Lawrence decisions in several states, applying their state constitutions — what exactly is the basis for outlawing incest? Is it that bans on gay sex are irrational but bans on adult incest are rational, and rationality is all that’s required for regulations of adult sex? Is it that bans on gay sex don’t pass strict scrutiny (or some such demanding test) but bans on adult incest do? Is it that Lawrence rested on the fact that bans on gay sex largely foreclose all personally meaningful sexual relationships for those who are purely homosexual in orientation, whereas incest bans only foreclose a few possible sexual partners?

Go and read his whole point but let me say that a Judge named Antonin Gregory Scalia saw this coming a mile away as did an awful lot of us. When I made the argument saying that you can’t logically ban polygamy while allowing gay marriage in a discussion on Center of Mass podcast this year my host insisted that it was totally different.

I’ve talked about the ick factor in the past. And let me quote myself one more time:

This is a republic. If the people who support gay marriage can move enough of the public in the individual states or on a national level to support it in an actual vote then the more power to them. That is how a republic works. With the media’s help they are well on their way to doing so, but let the people vote for it and if you win, you win. If your argument holds water it should be capable of doing so and you should be able to make that argument stick.

Take out the word gay marriage and enter anything you want instead and the argument holds. The fact that a respected lawyer is actually making the case tells me this is already coming down the pike. And let me leave you with some John Nolte in terms of changing the culture with the help of the media:

And this is how cinematic propaganda works. Whether the filmmaker’s motivations are good or evil, the idea is to get decent and thoughtful people to start second guessing themselves as they’re enveloped in the dark and held captive by the powerful sound and fury of the moving picture. First we’re led to identify and sympathize with a particular character, then that character does something designed to challenge our belief structure

None of this is a bug. It’s a feature.

Stacy McCain explains the difference between radical Islam and Catholics in one easy step

Posted: December 12, 2010 by datechguy in catholic, culture, internet/free speech, media, war
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Stacy McCain while writing on the subject of Frank Rich’s column ( a painful task always since it involves reading it) accidentally or on purpose crystallizes the difference between Radical Islam and mainstream religion that Pam Geller made points about yesterday on my show.

Rich decries the pulling of a taxpayer-funded Christmas exhibit that had ants crawling over a crucifix and called those who demanded it be removed bigots and homophobes.

Stacy’s take-down of the self-righteous Mr. Rich should of course be read in full but it is this sentence that is of interest to me.

That article prompted William Donohue of the Catholic League to send suicide-bombers to maim and murder innocent women and children ask Catholics to call the museum and complain.

And herein lies the difference. Roman Catholics call and complain, radical jihadists don’t.

By an odd coincidence an even better example of this difference became apparent yesterday. Another person acting on behalf of a different religion that Mr. Rich doesn’t deign to critique decided to voice his objects to a set of cartoons in a slightly different fashion as reported by Mr. Rich’s own paper:

One man was killed and two other people were injured when two explosions hit the heart of Stockholm’s city-center shopping district on Saturday evening, the police in the Swedish capital said. The country’s foreign minister called the blasts a terrorist attack, and an e-mail to news organizations minutes before the blasts seemed to link them to anger over anti-Islamic cartoons and the war in Afghanistan.

Although many right leaning bloggers decided to condemn this act of barbarous terror Mr. Rich has however decided to courageously spend his time critiquing American citizens who object to their tax dollars being used to offend them and decided to peacefully exercise their 1st amendment rights to make their objections known.

Mr. Rich, as an elite journalist of the left, has the courage to see beyond mere murder to locate the real danger to our society.

Plus he knows Catholics won’t harm him for criticizing them.

Any questions?

Apparently Sarah Palin is better read than Richard Wolffe.

Posted: December 12, 2010 by datechguy in culture, media
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There is an old saying that one is better off keeping ones mouth closed if thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Richard Wolffe decided on MSNBC to remove all doubt as he refers to one of the greatest Christian apologists of the 20th century as merely a Children’s author.

Wolffe seems to think it is clever to mock Palin reading a “children’s author,” while disrespecting one of the greatest authors in literature. Yes, C.S. Lewis is most famous among the pop culture crowd with the movies and sudden ressurgance of The Chronicles of Narnia, which happens to be an allegorical tale of Jesus Christ, who became a human being, and gave His life to save undeserving human beings from the penalty of sin. (Richard Wolffe seems to be in the same boat as Liam Neeson when it comes to not understanding C.S. Lewis’ Christian tales.)

I guess the MSNBC pop culture crowd are not as well read as they think they are.

“I’m not putting him down,” Wollfe responded. “But you know divine inspiration? There are things she could’ve said to divine inspiration. Choosing C.S. Lewis is an interesting one.”

Chris Matthews who is apparently remembers some of the stuff the Nuns taught him as a kid tries to warn Wolffe off but Wolffe doesn’t get it.

And to those of us (like Sarah Palin apparently) who are better informed and apparently better read than MSNBC analysis the fun continues:

Evidently, they didn’t cover Mere Christianity or The Four Loves when Wolffe himself was attending Oxford, where Lewis was both an alumnus and a distinguished faculty member for over thirty years.

And MSNBC wonders why no one takes them seriously. With or without Olbermann. Really.

and as Michelle Malkin reports Wolffe instead of admitting he goofed is spinning madly:

Brian Faughnan called Wolffe out on Twitter. Here was his response. Seriously:

She said “divine inspiration”. Not the traditional reaction to theological essays, even formidable ones by Lewis.

As Michelle says “He (Lewis) had them pegged”

But it is Stacy McCain who gives away J.R.R. Tolkien’s and Lewis’ game to the sectarian atheist crowd.

Lewis was, of course, a master of Christian apologetics and a good friend of J.R.R. Tolkien — they were colleagues at Oxford University – with whom he shared a desire to use literature to as a means of spreading the Christian worldview. Most fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy are probably unaware that they are absorbing a sort of sermon when they read the tales of Frodo and his comrades, but that’s the point: Tolkien (and Lewis) understood that many people who wouldn’t sit still for a theological lecture would be only too happy to read a well-written adventure tale about elves and dragons and magic.

Sarah Palin understands this. Richard Wolffe apparently does not. A nelson award for him:

I have a funny feeling the clip from Hardball will not make the Sunday Talk shows nor will it make Willie Geist’s “news you can’t use” segment on Monday for some reason. Can’t fathom why.

Three Cheers for Market Basket

Posted: December 2, 2010 by datechguy in culture, oddities
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Market Basket knows what day it is!

For having this picture in their window.

Market Basket is handling this exactly the right way. By putting a sign that explicitly says Merry Christmas they are eschewing the political correctness that has frightened and intimidated the multitudes.

What many business don’t understand is that by trying to placate a vocal and angry minority they actually upset the vast majority of customers who have many other alternatives for shopping. When I see “Happy Holidays” as opposed to Merry Christmas I am inclined to spend my money elsewhere and I’ll wager a lot of other people are too.

And for the few in the “tolerant left” who do not want “Merry Christmas” on anything Market Basket has not ignored your, nor have they ignored those who don’t celebrate Christmas but are not as easily agitated as some. Take a look at the poster next to the first one

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, Side by side in perfect harmony

This allows everybody to take a deep breath, the explicit Christmas poster allows them to say “Happy Holidays” elsewhere without insult because of the acknowledgment of the actual federal holiday that the country celebrates.

Would that more business’ had that degree of courage and common sense.

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