I’m a new reader to this blog. I have come at a volatile moment it seems. I do not wish to get into the already heated argument. I am a student to you in that you are the first example of what I would define as a feminist. So in my curiosity I am reading some of your past posts.
The post before this caught my eye pretty easily. And I was okay with some of what you said until I read this:
“I do think that serious physical damage ought to be prosecutable, whether the person suffering the damage wishes to press charges or not, because life and limb ought not to be in danger.”
So what I hear you saying in this is that the state should decide what is damage to life and limb and not the ‘victim’ of the said crime?
This seems counter intuitive to me, especially coming from a feminist. I would think that you of all people would want the definition, of what is and is not right for you, to be defined by you. Letting it be defined by the state seems strange. You will let the modern government decide what is right and wrong for you. But you spent a large part of the last post condemning religion, an early form of government. Have I read you wrong?
Thanks for your time!
Have you seen a state domestic violence law lately? The reason laws exist to protect life and limb is that there are some people who, through fucked up social conditioning, have allowed something to override their instinct for self-preservation. See the current Rhiana (sp?) and Chris Brown case, for example. People can consent to BDSM all day, but there has to be a line, and life and limb seems like the best one to me. The state, for all of the problems it poses, ought to be able to do its foundational job, and that’s to protect people. Yes, even from themselves, if what is being risked is life and limb (beyond that I’d say the state ought not to be protecting people “from themselves”).
You’re lumping way too much complicated stuff together by conflating the state and religion, by the way. The early church in the west might have had some governing functions, but it was hardly an “early form” of the state. “The state” existed in a lot of places on this planet where the church did not, and “the state” does not of necessity equal “bad” in every transaction. Nor does religion, for that matter. It’s sophomoric to equate authority with evil in all cases.
Thanks for replying! I really appreciate that.
I would like to say that I didn’t equate “state” as “bad”. Government is necessary in large enough groups of people.
However, you mentioned that you are an atheist. I think I read that right. I understand that you are not a ‘believer’ of anything other than what is here and now.
Using that very logical and reliable perspective. Again, it occurs to me that it would be better to stop the government from protecting us. The longer someone sits in discomfort the shorter the time between a negative trigger and the action of change for that person. They will eventually solve the problem for themselves. Or get bred out of the species.
Excluding survival of the fittest, The moment you allow general rules to apply to specific circumstances. You create an oppressive condition. For instance, consensual partners in a BDSM relationship who have to deny there love style in public. Ironically much the same way gays did a decade ago and in some places still today.
There seems to be a real dichotomy in the public view on what is okay and what is not when it comes to sex and relationships. But to condemn a couple or type of sexual relationship because someone outside that relationship, like the government, or you, or some entity, doesn’t feel comfortable with its direction. This is very assumptive and it fails to allow the beneficial learning curve that is inherent in life itself.
Don’t ignore the fact that you are making a huge assumption with what is probably very little knowledge and out of context of the truth of the relationship.
Yes. There are some people that suffer in a relationship of their joining, or not, that is not healthy. But if the social norm is what is ‘healthy’. Then what is okay today will be strange in 100 years. So trying to enforce that is, in the long view, pointless. As is, religion, feminism, anger, revenge, and so many other human conditions and choices. Which brings me back to governments and the reason that this country was founded on the belief that the least amount of government was a good thing.
What do you think?
I’m not an atheist, I’m an agnostic. An extreme Darwinist view like the one you are espousing is heartless and myopic, and is usually the province of Libertarians, and I don’t brook Libertarian bullshit. I’m not saying the government ought to be stepping into people’s relationships except in the most dire (i.e. abusive) of circumstances. They do it in the case of domestic violence, when the partner often won’t press charges, and they ought to also do it in the case of BDSM that threatens life and limb. Sorry, but manslaughter and mayhem are what they are, even when the perpetrator has the victim’s “consent.”
A proven opinionist. I thought I had a fair discussion between to educated people. A closed mind is not evidence to a well educated mind. But it does occur in well memorized minds.
Thanks. I’m sorry I wasted our time.
First of all, what qualifies you as “educated”? The discussion is fair, but you’re coming from a position of sophomoric ideology, not from a desire to engage fruitfully, so quit bullshitting. Are you arguing that people ought to be able to consent to being murdered and/or maimed? If not, what is the argument?
Excuse me for interjecting Matt but if you’re going to start implying that people are not as educated as yourself, it would be better to do so from a position of knowledge, not ignorance.
The term survival of the fittest does not mean what you seem to think it means. the terminology, as it applies in Darwinian evolution means that which is most fit for purpose shall survive, not necessarily that which is the strongest, the biggest or the best.
Humans are a social animal whose success depends upon cooperation, not some Ayn Rand type objectivist philosophy. Talking about humans being bred of of existance really is quite a repugnant anti human way of looking at the world.
Nine Deuce.
Whilst I agree with your argument here, I would make clear that there are no “extreme darwinists”, no more than there are “extreme newtonians” who accept the proven laws of physics.
Darwinian evolution is not a philosophy, no matter how much some would like to claim it as such. Most evolutionary scientists try to steer clear of describing themselves as ‘darwinists’ in order to avoid this confusion.
As I said, Matt’s way of thinking has more in common with Rand’s Objectivism than anything else.
I know there aren’t extreme darwinists, but it was the best term I could think of that he would understand. I think I agree that he sounds like an Ayn Rand fan, which might be my least favorite kind of person. The world seems to be full of Ayn Rand fans who think they’ve achieved whatever they’ve achieved in a vacuum and have no ability to see the difficulties people face when they aren’t born white, male, and middle class. I did like his comment about how educated he thinks he is. It’s a common tactic that uneducated know-it-all boors use, this implication that I’m uneducated because I don’t agree with their simplistic ideology.
LOL! Bizarre! Goes to show that people are really not all that different.
Oh, Hard Gay. That man would be arrested in the U.S. I always get a chuckle out of his antics.
I was enjoying listening to the Osaka dialect in the second video.
Hard Gay is hilarious. I can’t imagine that kind of advertising working in America outside of the Castro district.
I’m a new reader to this blog. I have come at a volatile moment it seems. I do not wish to get into the already heated argument. I am a student to you in that you are the first example of what I would define as a feminist. So in my curiosity I am reading some of your past posts.
The post before this caught my eye pretty easily. And I was okay with some of what you said until I read this:
“I do think that serious physical damage ought to be prosecutable, whether the person suffering the damage wishes to press charges or not, because life and limb ought not to be in danger.”
So what I hear you saying in this is that the state should decide what is damage to life and limb and not the ‘victim’ of the said crime?
This seems counter intuitive to me, especially coming from a feminist. I would think that you of all people would want the definition, of what is and is not right for you, to be defined by you. Letting it be defined by the state seems strange. You will let the modern government decide what is right and wrong for you. But you spent a large part of the last post condemning religion, an early form of government. Have I read you wrong?
Thanks for your time!
Have you seen a state domestic violence law lately? The reason laws exist to protect life and limb is that there are some people who, through fucked up social conditioning, have allowed something to override their instinct for self-preservation. See the current Rhiana (sp?) and Chris Brown case, for example. People can consent to BDSM all day, but there has to be a line, and life and limb seems like the best one to me. The state, for all of the problems it poses, ought to be able to do its foundational job, and that’s to protect people. Yes, even from themselves, if what is being risked is life and limb (beyond that I’d say the state ought not to be protecting people “from themselves”).
You’re lumping way too much complicated stuff together by conflating the state and religion, by the way. The early church in the west might have had some governing functions, but it was hardly an “early form” of the state. “The state” existed in a lot of places on this planet where the church did not, and “the state” does not of necessity equal “bad” in every transaction. Nor does religion, for that matter. It’s sophomoric to equate authority with evil in all cases.
Thanks for replying! I really appreciate that.
I would like to say that I didn’t equate “state” as “bad”. Government is necessary in large enough groups of people.
However, you mentioned that you are an atheist. I think I read that right. I understand that you are not a ‘believer’ of anything other than what is here and now.
Using that very logical and reliable perspective. Again, it occurs to me that it would be better to stop the government from protecting us. The longer someone sits in discomfort the shorter the time between a negative trigger and the action of change for that person. They will eventually solve the problem for themselves. Or get bred out of the species.
Excluding survival of the fittest, The moment you allow general rules to apply to specific circumstances. You create an oppressive condition. For instance, consensual partners in a BDSM relationship who have to deny there love style in public. Ironically much the same way gays did a decade ago and in some places still today.
There seems to be a real dichotomy in the public view on what is okay and what is not when it comes to sex and relationships. But to condemn a couple or type of sexual relationship because someone outside that relationship, like the government, or you, or some entity, doesn’t feel comfortable with its direction. This is very assumptive and it fails to allow the beneficial learning curve that is inherent in life itself.
Don’t ignore the fact that you are making a huge assumption with what is probably very little knowledge and out of context of the truth of the relationship.
Yes. There are some people that suffer in a relationship of their joining, or not, that is not healthy. But if the social norm is what is ‘healthy’. Then what is okay today will be strange in 100 years. So trying to enforce that is, in the long view, pointless. As is, religion, feminism, anger, revenge, and so many other human conditions and choices. Which brings me back to governments and the reason that this country was founded on the belief that the least amount of government was a good thing.
What do you think?
I’m not an atheist, I’m an agnostic. An extreme Darwinist view like the one you are espousing is heartless and myopic, and is usually the province of Libertarians, and I don’t brook Libertarian bullshit. I’m not saying the government ought to be stepping into people’s relationships except in the most dire (i.e. abusive) of circumstances. They do it in the case of domestic violence, when the partner often won’t press charges, and they ought to also do it in the case of BDSM that threatens life and limb. Sorry, but manslaughter and mayhem are what they are, even when the perpetrator has the victim’s “consent.”
A proven opinionist. I thought I had a fair discussion between to educated people. A closed mind is not evidence to a well educated mind. But it does occur in well memorized minds.
Thanks. I’m sorry I wasted our time.
First of all, what qualifies you as “educated”? The discussion is fair, but you’re coming from a position of sophomoric ideology, not from a desire to engage fruitfully, so quit bullshitting. Are you arguing that people ought to be able to consent to being murdered and/or maimed? If not, what is the argument?
Hi.
Excuse me for interjecting Matt but if you’re going to start implying that people are not as educated as yourself, it would be better to do so from a position of knowledge, not ignorance.
The term survival of the fittest does not mean what you seem to think it means. the terminology, as it applies in Darwinian evolution means that which is most fit for purpose shall survive, not necessarily that which is the strongest, the biggest or the best.
Humans are a social animal whose success depends upon cooperation, not some Ayn Rand type objectivist philosophy. Talking about humans being bred of of existance really is quite a repugnant anti human way of looking at the world.
Nine Deuce.
Whilst I agree with your argument here, I would make clear that there are no “extreme darwinists”, no more than there are “extreme newtonians” who accept the proven laws of physics.
Darwinian evolution is not a philosophy, no matter how much some would like to claim it as such. Most evolutionary scientists try to steer clear of describing themselves as ‘darwinists’ in order to avoid this confusion.
As I said, Matt’s way of thinking has more in common with Rand’s Objectivism than anything else.
I know there aren’t extreme darwinists, but it was the best term I could think of that he would understand. I think I agree that he sounds like an Ayn Rand fan, which might be my least favorite kind of person. The world seems to be full of Ayn Rand fans who think they’ve achieved whatever they’ve achieved in a vacuum and have no ability to see the difficulties people face when they aren’t born white, male, and middle class. I did like his comment about how educated he thinks he is. It’s a common tactic that uneducated know-it-all boors use, this implication that I’m uneducated because I don’t agree with their simplistic ideology.
Extreme social darwinist, perhaps?
Though, something of a tautology.