Corruption
One comment I heard more than once in election analysis yesterday was that corruption was a big factor, and that what are (somewhat sickeningly) called ‘values voters’ here had somewhat shifted their concerns from abortion and gay marriage to corruption. Thank you Jack Abramoff. Well about damn well time, is what I thought. That’s been bugging me for years – why are people who consider themselves concerned about ‘values’ so worked up about such comparatively trivial matters (even if you accept their attributions of wickedness) and unconcerned about, you know, massive bribery? Why is gay marriage such a big whopping deal while retail government is just fine? That’s what I was always asking. So I was very pleased to hear that that worm has turned. Now, will anyone do anything about it? That seems highly unlikely, and the Supreme Court seems highly likely to throw out anything that is done. But – who knows.
And another thing. Pombo is out. Brilliant.
Ah, c’mon OB, you know that the gaydom is an “ahbohmeeNAYshun”…
whereas cash for votes is just frowned upon. Might get you cleared out of the temple by an irate itinerant preacher once in a while. But only the temple, mind…
:-)
My in-laws must be fuming about the election results…
:-))
Interesting that the Dems are being proactive about corruption – se article in NYT. Nice change, if true.
Speaking of abominations, whats with the Dems outing gays all over? Its happening in Australia too – google Alan Jones. Are minorities only legitimate if they are in your camp, “ahbohmeeNAYshun” otherwise?
Nice change if true, exactly. I’m not going to hold my breath. That’s one reason I get cross with people who get cross with people who voted for Nader: it’s partly to do with the Dems’ abject failure or refusal to do anything about the corruption. I simply refuse to believe it’s asking too much to want to do something about endemic bribery.
Outing – dunno – are they? Usually the people who get outed are the ones who back anti-gay legislation. Haggard for instance.
I find ‘outing’ hypocrites unproblematic. Truth matters, after all…
Why is gay marriage such a big whopping deal while retail government is just fine?
Retail government? Wossat? But niverthelace ….
I think that people make a ‘big whopping deal’ out of the official recognition of homosexual unions as being on a par with marriage because gays themselves make a big whopping deal out of it. It was, so to speak, the homosexualists who started the whopping by testing the outside of civil society’s envelope.It’s their agenda.
The reason I myself also make a ‘big whopping deal’ out of the issue is that I consider it to be the ethical equivalent of an epistemic debate about whether the earth was created 6000 years ago or not. Vita brevis: time is fleeting, and its arrow is an accelerating one. Just as I don’t have the time or inclination to argue with every god-botherer creationist who buttonholes me on the street, I don’t feel I have to argue with every moral know-nothing who (as I see it) fails to understand that the chief purpose of state-sanctioned marriage is to protect children and promote the reproduction of the human species in a civilised environment – not to celebrate the joys of hedonism and recreational sex by officially rubber-stamping them as morally equivalent to the drudgery and heavy lifting involved in creating and maintaining a family.
I could defend my point in detail, if to do so were not self-defeating. My point is that (from my perspective) I don’t feel obliged to defend my point. And so I make a big deal out of people who (in my view) make such a big deal out of the matter that they more or less force me to defend my point, whether I like it or not.
But that’s because gays themselves (the ones who do argue for gay marriage, which not all do) consider it a civil rights issue, and one in which the granting of the right to one group takes nothing away from any other group. So, obviously enough, the denial of a desired right to group X is a big deal to group X, while it can be very difficult to see why it is a big deal to group Y if group Y loses nothing as a result. Like many observers, I have a hard time seeing what heterosexuals lose via gay marriage. It’s not as if straight marriage would become illegal. So, no, your account doesn’t explain why it’s such a big deal. You’re not forced to do anything, because a right of gay marriage wouldn’t take anything away from you. Just being an irritated onlooker doesn’t count.
That raises several interesting issues, actually.
“My point is that (from my perspective) I don’t feel obliged to defend my point. And so I make a big deal out of people who (in my view) make such a big deal out of the matter that they more or less force me to defend my point, whether I like it or not.”
But they don’t. Or, rather, why do you think they do? Or why do you sort of (‘more or less’) think they do? You don’t, really, do you. You’re just trying it on. You know they don’t. How can they be ‘forcing‘ you to defend your point? That’s the idea that’s interesting. Are you claiming that a moral or political claim that doesn’t affect you (at least not in any way that you’ve mentioned) forces you to defend the contrary view? If so, how does that work? What exactly is the compulsion that operates?
But Cathal, surely your point only makes sense if no homosexual marriages involve the raising of children, and all hetrosexual ones do.
As increasing numbers of gay couples seek the ‘drudgery and heavy lifting’, and increasing numbers of straight couples reject it, are you going to claim a marriage only becomes valid after a child has been successfully raised?
It doesn’t make much sense even then. For his point to make sense, marriage would have to explicitly entail child-raising, which it doesn’t and never has.
Mind you, he was careful. He picks his way, Cathal does – he was careful to say ‘the chief purpose’.
Rather off topic, but Grayling is on excellent form on CiF;
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ac_grayling/2006/11/post_604.html
What Ophelia and Don said.
Cathal’s post also implies that only the presence of children can elevate a relationship out of meaningless hedonism. Nice to know that the infertile are shallow, or those that chose for whatever reason not to have children.
Cathal’s just singing from the Book of Common Prayer:
“…and therefore is not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, to satisfy men’s carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God; duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained.
First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name….”
All well and good, except for all the teeny-tiny problems with that version already raised above…
OB, Don, BJN, Dave,
As always, it’s a lot more fun to debate with you guys (guys = guys + gals just as mankind = mankind + womankind) than it is to exchange sweet nothings with people who agree with everything one says.
I’m off to see ‘The Children of Men’. I’ll be back later, hopefully with devastating replies rather than abject confessions of defeat although it is against my principles to continue defending my position …
Again, of topic. My mum recently dug out a few family odds and ends, including my baptismal certificate, which includes the exhortation;
‘As soon as they begin to earn wages urge them to give a portion to God, and encourage them to work for the church.’
I’m not sure how one writes God a cheque so presumably it’s his earthly representatives who entertained the futile hope of getting their shovel into my store-room.
She also dug out my Scriptural Knowledge certificate (grade A) from when I was 12. Now, Hexham West End Methodist Church is no paper mill. They don’t give that kind of qualification away, it has to be earned. So the next theologian who pulls credentialist rank …
Ah, good old Book of Common Prayer. That passage is odious enough but dang it’s gorgeous.
I’m an absolute sucker for Tudor prose. Nashe, Hooker, Florio, the law against vagabonds and sturdy beggars, anyone or anything.
Guys fine. Mankind not, but guys=people (though there are times when ‘you guys’ actually doesn’t include me – but they’re rare).
Cool, Don’s a certified theologian.
Not only is Pombo out, but Barbara Boxer will be replacing that godbothering slimeball James Inhofe as chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. I cheer and cheer.
(And now, back to my delightful state-sanctioned lifestyle of hedonism and recreational sex.)
Yeah, I gotta say, the 25 quid a week I get from the state for my 2 kids doesn’t exactly compensate for the precipitate decline in hedonism and recreational sex they occasioned…
Lucky I’m not one of those shallow people who wouldn’t know what my marriage was for unless a vicar told me…
How was the movie, Cathal? I’ve heard differing opinions. Oh, and how are the devastating replies coming along?
“I cheer and cheer.”
So do I. Bolton out – yay, yay, yay, yaboosucks, yippee. But then I remember that what I’m cheering is just the removal of what should never have been there in the first place. Not actual good, just removal of extraordinarily bad. Then I feel irritation and exasperation. Then I go back to cheering some more.
Don, I’ll blow you away when I have time to get round to it. I’m too busy reading Schopenhauer’s brilliant demolition job on Kantian ethics in his treatise ‘On the Foundation of Morals’. But I’ve pencilled you in for destruction along with Ophelia. BE WARNED YOUR END IS NIGH.
The film ‘Children of Men’ was absolutely harrowing, though the plot was crap and there was too much bang-bang towards the end. Great, unforgettable scenes of a dystopian, childless and xenophobic Britain in the 20’s of this century.
Makes ‘Soylent Green’ seem like last night at the Proms.