Clearing the Air about me, Lindens, and a bunch of other stuff

The death penalty may not be a deterrant, but it sure does prevent repeat offenders.

Very true indeed, Dev!

But I want to go on record here and point out that if the death penalty ACTUALLY Meant you were sentanced to die and then put to death in a timely fashion, I belive there WOULD be an effect on crime.

Sentance: Death. You have 30 days to convince this court otherwise.
End of Story.
NEXT CASE!

I take pride in the fact that I am a decorated veteran, and if some pathetic Berkeley reactionary has a problem with that, well, they are just too out of touch with reality for me to even notice them, but taking pride in being a white male citizen of the US is kinda silly, really. I imagine women living in Brazil or Thailand are just as proud of their nations, but what's the point, really? How about taking pride in being a good person? That ought to be enough for anyone.

Maybe we'll think that. It should be followed by this thought:

"Why didn't we stop this when we could?"

I find it interesting, Christopher, that while you're the first to cite your advanced age and experience over the people who would challenge your beliefs, while you're quite fond of your veteran's history, you're simultaneously very typical of the younger generation in that you're not exactly tripping over yourself to take the blame.

You know what? All these changes that you don't like, they happened on your generation's watch, not ours. If you don't like the way things are now, maybe you should have done something when things began to change. It's not our fault -- this is the world we were born with. It's the world you created.

And personally, if it ever gets to the point where the government doesn't allow us to own weapons or forces us to submit to constant surveillance, I better well hope that I'd get pissed at myself for not having done more to stop it. That's the thing about democracy, it's up to us to shape our future. If we're not willing to put a stop to the trends that can only lead to totalitarianism (e.g. by voting GWBush out in 2004) when the trends are still in the infancy, then we deserve every microchip to the brainstem we get.

Ha! At last a liberal who admits their evil plan! Most of the "white middle class" people that I know are the children or grandchildren of those who came here with the clothes they stood up in and little more. They had to work for everything they had and likely would greet your attempts to "deprivelege" them with a bullet in your forehead. Every day I see newly immigrated people working hard, making money and getting ahead whilst lazy white trash sit at home having bastards, watching soap operas and waiting for their checks. The needy would be better served by being forced to graduate from high school (since it seems that manual labour is now beneath comtempt, and none of us is to have a trade) and given the tools to succeed in life, rather than pity and a handout.

You're absolutely right about closet cases in years past, Chris. There was a time when the social pressures against homosexuality were such that gay people not only were in the closet, but also married and had families.

And while them being in the closet apparently doesn't bother you, I can't imagine that you'd like the roles to be reversed. How would you like it if the only way you could maintain an acceptable social standing, a job, a house depended upon you pretending you were actually gay? Would you feel particularly fulfilled or free in a sham marriage with a fully self-actualized gay man who honestly believes you love him and find him attractive? Would you like to spend your entire life satisfying your sexual desires in secret and constantly in fear of being discovered or exposed? Would you like to spend your life being blackmailed by people who either knew of or merely speculated about your straight sexual experiences?

As a gay man myself, I can't say that I particularly understand a lot of "gay pride" culture. I don't see that it's that big of a deal, and to be honest, it seems to me that the gays who do think it's a big deal and "flaunt it" all the time need to grow up and self-actualize a little more. There's more to life than your sexual orientation. But I don't see that my being able to say "I'm gay" or at least allowing my friends to know I am is necessarily "flaunting it," any more than it is for a Christian to do the same.

I could probably name off dozens of Christian friends of mine who've informed me of such even while knowing that I'm an atheist, and a rather rabid one at that. They didn't think they were flaunting it, I didn't think they were flaunting it, and we became friends despite our differences. I don't see that my respecting of their religious convictions necessarily constitutes my "acceptance" of their "lifestyles," because I don't accept it; as it happens I think that the Abrahamic religions in general are deplorably hypocritical and archaic. But you know, we as humans won't get along very well if we're going to insist upon our values in undiplomatic ways.

I guess what it comes down to is that people like yourself who feel that equal rights for homosexuals constitutes "cramming" "GAYNESS" down your gullet are simply trying to have their cake and eat it, too. You're perfectly willing to lecture us homos -- cramming it down our gullets -- about your history as a veteran and your Christianity and about your vision for the future of the US, but when we turn around and ask not even to replace your vision or your values or your society but rather to become an equal and integral part of it, no, this becomes unacceptable, we're the politically correct geurillas hoping to brainwash you on some new world order that's morally corrupt, and you won't "accept" it, no way, no how.

Have you seen the movie "Northfork?" It's a movie about a small Montana town that's forced to dissolve by the fact that it exists in a valley that's to become a reservoir. Much of the movie revolves around a group of "angels," whose job is to convince the diehards that it's time to go, it's time to leave their homes for higher ground.

Well, as you might expect, each one of these characters is thoroughly stubborn and marginally insane. In one episode, an old man shoots at the angels while sitting on his porch. When he falls asleep, it's discovered that he's nailed his feet to the porch. He's not going anywhere.

In other words, in the face of the inevitable advance of the rising waters, these characters hope to grasp a life they once knew against all rationality. They do not recognize the good that might come of progress, they do not recognize the inevitability of progress. Rather, they exist in their inner, illogical worlds until they're to be drowned.

What I'm getting at, Chris, is that you seem to resist the rationality of equal rights for gays or any of the other social advances we've made over the past few decades, all of which directly follow from the founding principles of our nation, those principles you presumably fought for and for which I'm glad. You don't recognize the sheer irrationality of your position, of its inherent hypocrisy; you don't even recognize that these might be bad things. You're trying to hold on to a set of ideals and standards that are, in contemporary society, utterly meaningless and archaic.

Welcome to progress, I suppose.

It seems here, Chris, that you and Cris are arguing past each other. You're essentially saying the same thing.

Cris is right in saying that there's nothing stopping kids from praying in schools or bringing religious texts or wearing religious icons (we're not France, not yet). There is something stopping teachers and principals from determining who should pray, whether they should pray, and to whom they should pray. As for extra-curricular activities like devotionals or bible studies, I don't know if the law has been clearly cut on the matter. It probably depends a lot upon the district and the ambient level of religiosity there. I don't know if teachers are permitted to participate, or if they're banned from leading such groups, or if students unequivocally have a right to form such groups. I'm generally of the position that, if a school permits its students to have a science club and a gay/straight alliance club, it should permit students to form religious clubs as well.

But I think that barring teachers from leading such groups is wise, and not necessarily from a church/state separation point of view -- remember that the church/state thing was originally intended to protect faith, not the faithless (which is ironic, really. If the people who advocated more civic deism only realized they were opening the door to heated theological debates in the political forum, which has got to be the worst place for that sort of thing). Just imagine if you're a Catholic with a kid going to a Bible study led by an evangelical, born-again teacher, or vice versa. Teachers shouldn't be in a position to teach theology to students unless they're explicitly okayed to do so by the students' parents. You would agree with that, wouldn't you, Chris?

And, I imagine, if all teachers did was offer a moment of silence with which students might do as they please -- and I don't think teaching atheists to be respectful of the religious beliefs of others constitutes a violation of church/state -- it wouldn't even be an issue. I'm not sure what's to be gained by specifically creating a time and place for students to pray within the school day -- are they not able to pray sufficiently at home? It's kind of like nap time for high school students -- but it sounds like what you experienced, Chris, shouldn't be a problem. It bothers me that your kids were forced off campus for their devotional -- I'm not sure I understand the logic motivating barring them from praying at school. All I can say is that not all atheists believe prayer must be expunged from schools or public forums -- it just should not receive official sanction.

But it seems we're all arguing that.

Huh?

First:

How does the pledge of allegiance "teach" children patriotism? Do you think any of those words really sink in? I recited that pledge several times throughout my elementary school days, and while I can't say that I'm itching to commit treasonous acts now, I can't say that it's the pledge that stops me from doing so.

What does? Well, it's the realization that, despite much of what the US does that's fucked up, we've actually got it pretty good here in terms of built in freedoms and rights. More importantly, we have the power and ability to fix what's fucked up.

So, if our goal is to teach children to be proud of their country, perhaps we should focus less on icons and more on substance. Teaching them history, and full history, not just the white-washed, "We've always been the good guys" stuff, at least not after the students have reached a certain level of moral reasoning.

Second:

What business do we have teaching our children to be patriots, anyway? And in public schools? Are we Soviet Russia? Are we trying to produce an educated electorate or a society of useful comrades? Shouldn't our country's merits stand on their own without propaganda and pledges to force us to hallucinate them?

The thing that is unique about the United States government -- at least how it should be, it's not so much any more -- is that it's a government "for the people, by the people." That is to say, the government itself is not supposed to be a special entity to which we can owe an allegiance -- it's merely a bureaucratic convenience which allows ourselves, as individuals, to pursue our own happiness however we see fit.

That is, it's not about our nation, it's about ourselves. And yes, we should be glad to live in a society that's as free as ours is, and be willing to come together to improve the common good, but the minute our government becomes this monolith above and apart from ourselves as individuals is the day we've lapsed into tyranny. And, unfortunately, we may have already headed in that direction.

Our president is not, and should not be, an autocrat. He's a public servant with a temporary mandate. Our allegiance is not to him or to whatever it is we pledge to when we "pledge our allegiance to the flag" -- it's to each other.

Third:

You offer Cris a false choice. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to believe that the pledge is appropriate or inappropriate which have nothing to do with loving or hating our country. In fact, you've claimed as much.

When you say that students recite the pledge to enforce their patriotism, you are providing a reason for its existence. By rejecting the pledge, then, one might be said to be rejecting the notion that students should have their patriotism enforced in this way. This may or may not have anything to do with hating the government. So then, to make the conclusion that you do, that Cris must either be trying to piss you off or that he genuinely dislikes the US government, is illogical; it's false, a false choice. Your own statements assert that more than one reason exists for the recitation of the pledge; therefore more than one reason must exist for the pledge's rejection.

Actually... yes, probably.

Isn't this commonly believed? That the world is marching inexorably towards liberal democracy as the only legitimate system of government? Coupled with a free market ideology, it would seem reasonable to suggest that, some day, the world's nations will all adopt similar principles and governments and will march in lockstep with one another in a perfect, consumer-driven utopia.

Humans seem to tend toward conformity as part of our social nature. As technology has improved, the horizons on conformity have broadened so that more and more people are more and more alike.

Can it reasonably be argued that the dominance of English as an international language or of American pop culture is a passing phase? That at some point, diversity will somehow triumph?

Diversity, such as it is, while interesting and engaging when it occurs, is strictly speaking a transitional state. When cultures first begin to blend, they maintain their unique identities, but eventually the individual chracteristics of the cultures begin to compete for dominance, until ultimately a single, new culture has been formed, capable of its own challenges with other cultures.

The only limiting factors on the speed and efficiency of this blending seems to be space and technology. The world isn't getting any smaller but our technology is getting a lot bigger; as a consequence, we're all probably a lot more alike than our iconoclastic tendencies would like to admit. You'd be surprised how much my hometown -- in the middle of Nebraska -- is like upstate New York, and how alike in temperament the people here are to those in NYC, their significant differences notwithstanding.

Not that I particularly feel that uniformity is a good thing -- but the fact remains that our imaginations are only so powerful. At some point we begin to imagine the same things, we do the same things to rebel from dominant culture, because we've been cut of the same cloth.

An interesting counter-example exists, however, in Judaism. Part of what made Judaism so successful as a social construct was its specific rejection of cultural blending, as exemplified by its purity laws. It is this character that has made its child faiths, Christianity and Islam, also very successful. These faiths tend to be resistant to syncreticism, so, as a consequence, they tend to persevere. So it might be argued that constructs can be conceived which explicitly reject the ongoing march toward conformity and uniformity by elevating a core set of values and adhering to them "religiously," if not as a religion, per se.

But doing so means doing so irrationally. A single set of values may have staying power over many ages, but it cannot be said unequivocally that a single core set of values will be better than any alternatives for all time, and indeed, the Abrahamic religions have slowly eroded over time as syncreticism and technology has changed the way man thinks about himself and his religion. Judaism's utility has almost completely faded, now constituting little more than a philosophy, and Christianity is well on its way. Islam is dragging its feet, but as modernism takes root in Arab nations -- as, inevitably, it must -- Islam will also lose its color and begin to assimilate.

So, in short, yes, we are headed to a Brave New World, and that world already exists in part in much of western civilization. I don't particularly like it, but I'm also powerless to stop the progression of the inevitable. All I can do is offer my particular flavor.

Who pissed in Phineas' Cheerios this morning?

I don't eat Cheerios.

I was just trying to respond to your posts, Chris, in the clearest way possible, by breaking them up into different subjects. I could have just posted:

"You're an irrational holdover from a time past!!!"

But I didn't figure that would be received very well or be very convincing. I'd be curious to know what you think about what I've said, but I realize my length and my verbosity can be off-putting. *shrugs* That's what I get for cutting myself off from short-attention span media.

Wow, do you live in a place with a wierd demographic! Most places, the white middle class aren't the ones shooting people, for one thing! But, hey, you must be in Texas.

And you'll notice that I said we would provide better for the needy, NOT that I said it was our agenda to simply increase payments to the impoverished. It's not the same thing at all, although its scary that you would immediately jump to that conclusion!