The Homosexual Agenda, The aclu, And Your Children...

[Doug]

Larkinn (and Shogun): I've got to go to bed now so I will answer most of your posts tomorrow.

Except for one thing.

Look at my post, #431. Here is a bit of it:

(2) I think you are splitting hairs on the differences between Sociobiology and Evolutionary Psychology. Here is what Wiki has to say about it:

Sociobiology is a synthesis of scientific disciplines that attempts to explain social behavior in all species by considering the evolutionary advantages the behaviors may have. It is often considered a branch of biology and sociology, but also draws from ethology, anthropology, evolution, zoology, archeology, population genetics and other disciplines. Within the study of human societies, sociobiology is closely related to the fields of human behavioral ecology and evolutionary psychology.

Sociobiology has become one of the greatest scientific controversies of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, especially in the context of explaining human behavior. Criticism, most notably made by Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould, centers on sociobiology's contention that genes play a central role in human behavior and that variation in traits such as aggressiveness can be explained by variation in peoples' biology and is not necessarily a product of the person's social environment. Many sociobiologists, however, cite a complex relationship between nature and nurture. In response to the controversy, anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides launched evolutionary psychology as a centrist branch of sociobiology with less controversial focuses

.

In replying to it, you said:

"Wiki also says, which you conveniently left out,

Many sociobiologists, however, cite a complex relationship between nature and nurture. In response to the controversy, anthropologist John Tooby and psychologist Leda Cosmides launched evolutionary psychology as a centrist branch of sociobiology with less controversial focuses.

Lesson for the class: Find the part of the Wiki article that I "conveniently left out".

Diuretic: Some names, so you can Google if you want to: That Harvard sociobiologist, EO Wilson. Nobel prizewinner I think, specialist on ants. Physically attacked by leftist goons during a talk on campus, plus other indignities.

Not in Our Genes, etc. Richard Lewontin, a Marxist biologist -- a Maoist, or he used to be. And the late Stephen Gould, also a Marxist, but a very entertaining writer. The OU guy you are thinking of is probably Richard Rose.

If you are interested in this question, I can send you a lot of references, books, articles and links. It overlaps heavily with the race and IQ question, which is, however, something we conservatives should not touch with a ten-foot pool -- your side has more latitude.

Related and also of interest is the sex-and-cognition question: why are there few women mathematicians and physicists? If you want to survive in American academia, be very very careful if you suggest that it might actually have something to do with brain differences. Even mentioning this as a theoretical possibility cost the president of Harvard University his job -- and he was a well-known liberal, one of Clinton's men.

I don't think Dawkins is really closely allied, in practice, to the sociobiology/Evolutionary Psychology people, athough logically he should be.

 

[jillian]

Jillian : Trying to understand "why men get into fights with men who did nothing more than flirt with the woman they're with" is actually a very useful exercise. You've again hit on a key point and perhaps a difference between Left and right.

But ... I hesitate to reply. Because right on page 1 of my Men's Field Manual for Tactics and Strategy in the War Between the Sexes (FM100-1), it says in bold type: DO NOT LET THEM KNOW THEIR OWN POWER OVER US.

But what the hell, your side never believes it anyway, so here I go:

The answer is basically simple: we fight because

-- (1) there is some genetically-shaped impulse in us which shapes our behavior in the my-mate-is-being-propositioned situation, and this gene or gene-complex has alleles which range over a variety of strengths, and

--- (2) in the past, males who had the stronger alleles, i.e. who kept other males away from their women more successfully, had more descendants than those males who didn't object very strongly. It's the same reason there are so few slow gazelles, or slow lions.

And women's choices played a big role in this: look into your heart and ask how you would respond if your husband was not jealous at all, and responded to other male come-ons to you (which among the intelligentsia are usually more subtle than wolf-whistles) with indifference. Your female ancestors chose the strong guys over the nicer guys, and it was a wise decision on their part. The same "Whut you lookin' at?" belligerence was better at protecting the cubs in a Hobbsean world.



This also explains the difference in male and female sexuality, and also even the differences in what makes them jealous.

One of the most powerful memories I have of a certain ex-wife, IQ 160 plus, a university graduate at 18, an intellectual's intellectual, was her response to a very mild apparent flirtation-signal directed towards me by another woman. She said , "I'll scratch her eyes out!"

Women are jealous, then, for sure, but there is a difference.

I will go out on a limb here, and assert: women fear losing their male permanently, more than they fear that he will be on rare occasions unfaithful. Whereas men react much more violently to the possibility of even a single infidelity.

And there are obvious biological reasons for this, which it would make this post too long to go into here, but anyone interested can read up on Evolutionary Psychology. (A demurral here: I think the EP people may sometimes go too far in trying to explain all human behavior as evolutionary adaptations. But they are clearly on to something.)

But to put it in a nutshell: one single wayward liaison on the part of a female can leave the male raising a cuckoo's egg. A similar extra-marital encounter on the part of the male, provided it goes nowhere, does not threaten your ability to raise your descendants. You know that your children are yours. He doesn't know with the same certainty that they are his (and some studies of biological as opposed to legal fatherhood have shown that he actually has reason to worry. Widespread DNA testing is going to cause social havoc).

These same reasons explain why the amount of porn produced for males far outweighs the amount of porn produced for females, roughly in the ratio of their respective lifetime gamete production counts (400 for you, umpty-zillion for us). And also in respect of its subtlety.

And it's why any reasonable-looking female, if she wants to, can get almost any normal male running around in front of her with one wing on the ground.

And why we have, therefore -- given the potentiallity of permanent warfare among the males in colonies of the human chimpanzee -- seen the evolution of a whole raft of social institutions, laws and customs, to try to curb this powerful male impulse and divert it into channels where it can be constructive.

(Another book suggestion here, to balance my previous feminist one: Steven Rhoads' Taking Sex Differences Seriously. Please feel free to retaliate.)

It's why Dr Johnson said, "Nature having given woman so much power, the law wisely allows her but little." (Or something similar.) (Of course his observation is now obsolete, which is why, if civilization survives so long, women will be the dominant sex within a few generations: you will have the power of both the law and Nature on your side.)

And why Socrates is supposed to have said, having reached the age of sexual indifference, "At last I have been set free from a cruel and insane master."

This powerful drive, expressed in different ways among male and female, provides the theme for half if not more of the world's great literature. (And its awful literature too.)

And now we come to the political bit.

In the last few decades, in the West, we have seen the progressive dismantling of these laws, customs and institutions. This makes us conservatives uneasy.

Of course, few conservatives base their unease at things like growing single-parenthood and casual sex among young people and the dismantling of various sexual taboos, on Darwinism. (A few do, but we are regarded with suspicion by the rest of the tribe, and probably with good reason. Even a conservative-friendly rationalism is probably insufficient to sustain a good society. Nonetheless the hostility of many conservatives toward Darwinism is ironic, given that it supports a conservative approach to society.)

Rationalist liberals of the educated middle classes look at the religious and just-plain-prejudice driven arguments of many conservatives defending traditional morality, and laugh, or get indignant.

And indeed there is something there to laugh at, especially the delicious hypocrisy of many male conservatives. (I personally got intense enjoyment out of all the Republican Congressmen standing up to piously denounce Bill Clinton, knowing what an aphrodesiac male power is, as Henry Kissinger observed, and knowing all the opportunties that a Congressman has for testing the efficacy of that aphrodesiac .. It was noble, how they put the interests of their Party, as they saw it, above the interests of their Sex.)

But the hypocrisy is necessary. A society based on Pure Reason will not last.

We are now dismantling anything that cannot be defended in terms other than, Does it cause displeasure to a non-consenting adult? If not, have at it! A dangerous experiment.

And I know that all these changes are subtly intertwined with that great and historic advance in human progress out of the slime, the emancipation of women, and are driven not by some homosexual or communist conspiracy, but by the prosperity and increasing individual autonomy that the free market has brought us. Hoist by our own petard!

So we conservatives grumble and look fearfully into the future, and shake our heads at each new set of statistics documenting what we see as progressive social decay, and at each new advance of the "If it feels good, do it!" philosophy, but we know we cannot do much to even slow the tide, much less stop or reverse it.

I see where you're coming from. I really do. But as sentient, supposedly civilized beings, I think we can be expected to rise above whatever stone-age impulses lie within. People who perpetrate acts of violence against others have done so voluntarily. If I smile at someone, that should no more make my husband punch him in the face than if I shake the rain off of an umbrella. And while I would be angry if he made a play for another woman, I can't imagine being violent toward her.

I don't think it's so much that "liberals" have a philosophy of "if it feels good, do it". I think it's more that we... well, I at least, feel people have to govern their own behavior. And if that behavior has no effect on me, it isn't my place to tell them how to comport themselves. I also am secure enough in my own mores and behaviors, not to be much troubled by people who live differently. I also think, perhaps, I might be much less apt to put people in the boxes of moral and immoral or maybe I see different things as immoral. Sexuality between two consenting adults is healthy. Porn, if tasteful, doesn't much trouble me either. It is immoral to steal, to cheat another in business, to be fundamentally dishonest and (to digress into partisan politics for a moment) to wage war for unsupportable reasons. But mostly, I don't want someone as fallible as anyone else making determinations about what my behavior or anyone else's behavior should be IF IT HAS NO EFFECT ON ANYONE ELSE. That does not mean that we, as a society shouldn't continue to prohibit acts which infringe on another's liberty.... stealing (which interferes in our freedom to freely possess our own property) murder (which deprives us of our life), etc.

Finally, I have never seen sexuality as "a cruel and insane master"... rather, I think it is a normal part of who we are, to be appreciated, enjoyed and one of the gifts we are given by our maker, rather than some evil part of the human biology which should be suppressed.

Perhaps the difference between conservatism and liberalism is that we're optimists about human behavior

 

[Diuretic]

Bingo on the names, thanks Doug, that's those. I thought Wilson was pretty interesting. I can't critique anyone on the science of any of it but if it smells of ideology I'm turned off.

 

[José]

Originally posted by Doug
And why Socrates is supposed to have said, having reached the age of sexual indifference, "At last I have been set free from a cruel and insane master."

Originally posted by Jillian
Finally, I have never seen sexuality as "a cruel and insane master"... rather, I think it is a normal part of who we are, to be appreciated, enjoyed and one of the gifts we are given by our maker, rather than some evil part of the human biology which should be suppressed.

Forgive her ignorance, Doug.

As a woman, she doesn’t understand the burnings we feel in our lower parts.

No matter how many times we explain it to her.

She doesn’t understand it and probably never will.

 

[Diuretic]

Any Monty Python fans?

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel,

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietszche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whiskey every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.

Socrates obviously had brewer's droop

 

[Doug]

Jillian: Thank you for having the fortitude to read my dissertation-posts.

Yes, I believe that men and women have some fundamental, but subtle, differences in the way they think, the things that motivate them, and so on.

How much, in any given society, these are due to nature, and how much to nurture, is one of the most interesting questions of our time, given that the purely social constraints on women are rapidly dissolving: an inadvertent experiment in weakening one of two otherwise-intangled factors.

And I am sure you are right about the differences between liberals and conservatives, with regard to the unspoken world-view each group has.

A study of human history, especially that of the last five hundred years, provides unlimited material to support the views of both sides.

It's ironic that with respect to Iraq, the two groups have exchanged places: conservatives (at least some of them) optimistically believing that all hearts yearn for freedom, etc, liberals believing that Iraqis are incorrigibly committed to living in a world where family and tribe and brute force should trump the rule of law.

As for the alleged hedonism at the heart of liberal philosophy ... yes, I exaggerate. This was the view of the Sixties generation (ask me how I know), and I believe that they brought it, subconsciously, into the liberal movement, insofar as one can speak of a liberal movement. There it blended well with the old-fashioned liberal tendency to look to the state for remedies to social problems, which implies a diminished role for personal resonsibility.

But I know there are all kinds of liberals, and some have a fairly well work-out theory of community, and the responsibilities of individuals within it, for example. (But I notice that on this Board, nuances and acknowlegement of exceptions to the rule are not appreciated. So I shall stick to unfair, sweeping generalizations.)

And many conservatives would instinctively agree with your libertarian social philosophy: An it hurt no one, do what thou wilt. The arguments begin over where social harm, perhaps initially very subtle in effect, can result from what are logically individual choices.

Thus the only argument I can see against legalizing drugs -- which I support -- is the one that says that it will, in fact, result in widespread misery as people find it much easier to acquire and use and then ab-use them -- and you can be sure the capitalist market will bring drugs to them at very low prices and packaged most attractively.

The libertarian focusses on the individual, in the privacy of her own home, making a rational choice as to how and to what extent to alter her consciousness by chemical means for a few hours. The non-libertarian looks at the big picture and the effect on society as a whole. (My own guess is that it can't get much worse, and that legalization would have such enormous good effects in other fields -- destroying the financial base of drug gangs and removing a powerful source of judicial and police corruption -- that it is worth taking the risk.)

José: Perhaps you will reconsider your choice of words -- "burnings in our lower parts" -- (I have found that they don't like to hear that sort of language, at least not during the initial stages of the chase.) I personally prefer to explain it as "the intensity of our romantic ardor" or some such. " ... and we will some new pleasures prove ..." etc.

(Attention, teenage male lurkers: go here for some good lines. Warning: they must be memorized, not Googled for on your hand-held computer at the crucial moment, which will spoil the desired effect.)

 

[jillian]

Any Monty Python fans?



Socrates obviously had brewer's droop

The Philosophers' Song?!?!?!?! RAFLMAO!!

I still like the penguin on the telly.

 

[jillian]

Jillian: Thank you for having the fortitude to read my dissertation-posts.

Yes, I believe that men and women have some fundamental, but subtle, differences in the way they think, the things that motivate them, and so on.

How much, in any given society, these are due to nature, and how much to nurture, is one of the most interesting questions of our time, given that the purely social constraints on women are rapidly dissolving: an inadvertent experiment in weakening one of two otherwise-intangled factors.

And I am sure you are right about the differences between liberals and conservatives, with regard to the unspoken world-view each group has.

A study of human history, especially that of the last five hundred years, provides unlimited material to support the views of both sides.

It's ironic that with respect to Iraq, the two groups have exchanged places: conservatives (at least some of them) optimistically believing that all hearts yearn for freedom, etc, liberals believing that Iraqis are incorrigibly committed to living in a world where family and tribe and brute force should trump the rule of law.

As for the alleged hedonism at the heart of liberal philosophy ... yes, I exaggerate. This was the view of the Sixties generation (ask me how I know), and I believe that they brought it, subconsciously, into the liberal movement, insofar as one can speak of a liberal movement. There it blended well with the old-fashioned liberal tendency to look to the state for remedies to social problems, which implies a diminished role for personal resonsibility.

But I know there are all kinds of liberals, and some have a fairly well work-out theory of community, and the responsibilities of individuals within it, for example. (But I notice that on this Board, nuances and acknowlegement of exceptions to the rule are not appreciated. So I shall stick to unfair, sweeping generalizations.)

And many conservatives would instinctively agree with your libertarian social philosophy: An it hurt no one, do what thou wilt. The arguments begin over where social harm, perhaps initially very subtle in effect, can result from what are logically individual choices.

Thus the only argument I can see against legalizing drugs -- which I support -- is the one that says that it will, in fact, result in widespread misery as people find it much easier to acquire and use and then ab-use them -- and you can be sure the capitalist market will bring drugs to them at very low prices and packaged most attractively.

The libertarian focusses on the individual, in the privacy of her own home, making a rational choice as to how and to what extent to alter her consciousness by chemical means for a few hours. The non-libertarian looks at the big picture and the effect on society as a whole. (My own guess is that it can't get much worse, and that legalization would have such enormous good effects in other fields -- destroying the financial base of drug gangs and removing a powerful source of judicial and police corruption -- that it is worth taking the risk.)

José: Perhaps you will reconsider your choice of words -- "burnings in our lower parts" -- (I have found that they don't like to hear that sort of language, at least not during the initial stages of the chase.) I personally prefer to explain it as "the intensity of our romantic ardor" or some such. " ... and we will some new pleasures prove ..." etc.

(Attention, teenage male lurkers: go here for some good lines. Warning: they must be memorized, not Googled for on your hand-held computer at the crucial moment, which will spoil the desired effect.)

No problem... I enjoy the exchanges.

I will answer your post later, but I have to get to work now.

 

[Shogun]

you know, Doug.. It seems you missed my post where I specifically stated that if I had the answer to the nature vs nurture question I'd be the next ivan pavlov.

 

[Doug]

Shogun: Join the club. I will go back and look over your posts, and Larkinn's too.

But I sometimes get the feeling that there is a certain amount of ... shall we say, levity, in your posts. So I then fear that I am charging a giant you have appeared to put before me, which is actually a windmill. A sneaky liberal trick to wear us conservatives out!

 

[Shogun]

it's your constant liberal/conservative generalizations that turn me off. I find that politics is not as much of a cookie cutter as you imply. You may find levity in my posts because this is the internet and anyone taking this shit seriously needs to re-discover the sun. However, for someone pointing a finger at my posts perhaps it's the quickness with which Ill post evidence that sets you afloat. Sure, sure.. You seem to have a million and one hypotheticals but I don't think i'd get on a soapbox about the nature of anyone's posts if I were you.

I find that some of the longer winded posters are not so much dazzling with brilliance but, rather, trying to baffle with bullshit.

 

[AllieBaba]

it's your constant liberal/conservative generalizations that turn me off. I find that politics is not as much of a cookie cutter as you imply. You may find levity in my posts because this is the internet and anyone taking this shit seriously needs to re-discover the sun. However, for someone pointing a finger at my posts perhaps it's the quickness with which Ill post evidence that sets you afloat. Sure, sure.. You seem to have a million and one hypotheticals but I don't think i'd get on a soapbox about the nature of anyone's posts if I were you.

I find that some of the longer winded posters are not so much dazzling with brilliance but, rather, trying to baffle with bullshit.

Is that what you really think, or are you just aping Jillian, again?

 

[Shogun]

I see that having your ass handed to you has created a grudge, eh?


hehehehe...



you run with that.

 

[Doug]

Shogun: You say:

it's your constant liberal/conservative generalizations that turn me off. I find that politics is not as much of a cookie cutter as you imply.

I do not expect you to read carefully through my Collected Works, but in fact I go to great lengths to try to distinguish, at a minimum, genuine liberals from the hard Left. I know that there are many currents within the Left -- it is nowhere near as diverse as the Right, but it is far from homogeneous. Only a fool would equate, for example, Todd Gitlin with Noam Chomsky. In fact, because I believe understanding all the differences within the Left is so important for being able to combat it, when I wrote my pamphlet on how to debate -- The Right Way to Argue: How Conservatives Can Prevail in OnLine Debate -- I devoted several paragraphs to this very topic. (Available for free, just PM me -- sorry, conservatives and sensible liberals only.)

You may find levity in my posts because this is the internet and anyone taking this shit seriously needs to re-discover the sun.

"The medium is the message", huh? I don't agree but I will grant that the anonymity the internet affords its users can tempt us to reveal our worst sides. And I'll also say that this Message Board seems to exacerbate that, for some reason.

However, for someone pointing a finger at my posts perhaps it's the quickness with which Ill post evidence that sets you afloat

.I don't recall any examples of this -- I do remember that you had an exchange with someone about whether or not homosexuality had been shown to be genetic, but I was not involved in that argument. I know that homosexuality is not a "choice", and the question is actually irrelevant.

Sure, sure.. You seem to have a million and one hypotheticals but I don't think i'd get on a soapbox about the nature of anyone's posts if I were you.

I'm about the kindest, sweetest, most understanding-of-liberals conservative with whom you'll ever argue. If you get upset by any observations of mine about your posts, other than their content, you must be mighty thin-skinned indeed.

In any case, I strive to avoid personal exchanges with people, even if I think they are wicked. It's pointless. I'm here to argue about ideas, and I hope that everyone else is too.

 

[Shogun]

B]Shogun: You say: I do not expect you to read carefully through my Collected Works, but in fact I go to great lengths to try to distinguish, at a minimum, genuine liberals from the hard Left. I know that there are many currents within the Left -- it is nowhere near as diverse as the Right, but it is far from homogeneous. Only a fool would equate, for example, Todd Gitlin with Noam Chomsky. In fact, because I believe understanding all the differences within the Left is so important for being able to combat it, when I wrote my pamphlet on how to debate -- The Right Way to Argue: How Conservatives Can Prevail in OnLine Debate -- I devoted several paragraphs to this very topic. (Available for free, just PM me -- sorry, conservatives and sensible liberals only.)[/B]


Would you care to post your evidence that suggests "it is nowhere near as diverse as the Right" or, again, will I have to point out your total lack of anything beyhond hypothetical rhetoric? I see you drop "liberals blah blah blah" all the time. I can quote you, if you'd like. Way to plug your stuff, by the way. I hope it gives better advice than how i've seen you perform in this forum.




"The medium is the message", huh? I don't agree but I will grant that the anonymity the internet affords its users can tempt us to reveal our worst sides. And I'll also say that this Message Board seems to exacerbate that, for some reason..


Indeed, perhaps your first clue should have been the nicknames and handles that everyone chooses for themselves. If you lose sleep over what you read in a message board, whether you agree or not, you need to go rediscover life in general. Did I say "The Medium is the Message"? trying to dive a little deeper than is necessary, eh? you know.. instead of dazzling with brilliance, baffling with bullshit?


I don't recall any examples of this -- I do remember that you had an exchange with someone about whether or not homosexuality had been shown to be genetic, but I was not involved in that argument. I know that homosexuality is not a "choice", and the question is actually irrelevant.

oh, NOW it's irrelevant.. Convenient that this seems to be the flow of the stream after I posted from the APA... of COURSE it's irrelevant because MOST people respnd to irrelevance with "b-b-but the APA is a liberal thinktank!" and "psychology is not physics!", eh? My point being that since butting heads in that thread one of us tends to rely on posted evidence while the other tried to weave rhetorical non-sequiters from opinion into logic. Did you ever figure out why it becomes pointless to blame a scantily dressed woman hellbent on walking home if you force her into your own car?



"I'm about the kindest, sweetest, most understanding-of-liberals conservative with whom you'll ever argue. If you get upset by any observations of mine about your posts, other than their content, you must be mighty thin-skinned indeed."

Indeed, so too can I be a gentleman to my political counterparts. I just have no stomach for the generalization. But, since I am confident in my ability to repel shit then it looks like we are both kosher... as long as your integument has a healthy layer as well. i don't get mad at these threads.. They make me laugh.


In any case, I strive to avoid personal exchanges with people, even if I think they are wicked. It's pointless. I'm here to argue about ideas, and I hope that everyone else is too.

Well, that's well and good and all... until you toss out sweeping generalizations. Don't worry. Ill point them out to you every time I catch you blaming liberals for this or assuming anything that doesn't fall in line with your opinion is a liberal think tank. Feel free to generously post evidence and sources for your assertions. Lord knows an ounce of evidence is worth a ton of speculation.

 

[midcan5]

Doug,

"It's ironic that with respect to Iraq, the two groups have exchanged places: conservatives (at least some of them) optimistically believing that all hearts yearn for freedom, etc, liberals believing that Iraqis are incorrigibly committed to living in a world where family and tribe and brute force should trump the rule of law."

what the hell! No one but you thinks that? You ain't even close on the conservatives who are fighting those bad Islamic terrorists last I checked.

"The Right Way to Argue: How Conservatives Can Prevail in OnLine Debate -- I devoted several paragraphs to this very topic."

Doug, please post in writing, share it, and I, when I have time would love to do the sequel.

 

[AllieBaba]

I see that having your ass handed to you has created a grudge, eh?


hehehehe...



you run with that.

Just because you say it, friend, doesn't make it so. You can't hand my ass to me if you don't bother to read the material provided. And saying it's irrelevant is, well, irrelevant, if you haven't read the material.

And no, I don't hold a grudge, despite the fact that your comments are base and insulting, besides being patently incorrect.

 

[Shogun]

patently incorrect? Like how Jillian pointed out that you name dropped a study erroneously? HAHA!

Maybe I can just label it a conservative agenda since that seems to work for you after poking you with the reality of the APA standard... Hell, even Doug bailed on you and admitted that homosexuality isn't a choice. But you stick with your misunderstanding about a name dropped study you didn't think would come back to haunt you. Being tenacious about this is only going to make is sweeter when I get tired of teasing you...

 

[AllieBaba]

The study I named was apropos and made my point. Which you don't know because you didn't look at it. Or bother to read the opinions of the true scientific community (not the psychology nuts) who state, one and all, that the studies don't back up the claims that homosexuality is caused by biology or genetics.

For the simple minded:
No, there's no evidence to support homosexuality is not a choice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology_and_sexual_orientation

 

[Doug]

Doug,

"It's ironic that with respect to Iraq, the two groups have exchanged places: conservatives (at least some of them) optimistically believing that all hearts yearn for freedom, etc, liberals believing that Iraqis are incorrigibly committed to living in a world where family and tribe and brute force should trump the rule of law."

what the hell! No one but you thinks that? You ain't even close on the conservatives who are fighting those bad Islamic terrorists last I checked..

The conservative movement is very diverse -- there are indeed conservatives who see the whole world as Judeo-Christians vs Islam. There are those -- I suppose -- who believe that Saddam was behind 9/11, or could have been, and was almost ready to start turning out nuclear weapons n the assembly line. And then there are those upon whom many liberals put the blame for the whole Iraq war, the neo-conservatives.

Now the neo-conservatives have a well-worked out world view. It is not based on religious mysticism, nor on reflexive patriotism. (You may argue that their clandestine motivation is concern for the welfare of Israel, or the desire to provide situations for maximizing corporate profits, or a lust for power, or a delight in watching human suffering -- but their official world view is not hard to find.)

Joshua Muravchik outlines it well in the latest issue of Commentary:

... some kind of common neoconservative mentality endured beyond the cold war. What were its elements?

First, following Orwell, neoconservatives were moralists. Just as they despised Communism, they felt similarly toward Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic and toward the acts of aggression committed by those dictators in, respectively, Kuwait and Bosnia. And just as they did not hesitate to enter negative moral judgments, neither did they hesitate to enter positive ones. In particular, they were strong admirers of the American experience—an admiration that arose not out of an unexamined patriotism (they had all started out as reformers or even as radical critics of American society) but out of the recognition that America had gone farther in the realization of liberal values than any other society in history. A corollary was the belief that America was a force for good in the world at large.

Second, in common with many liberals, neoconservatives were internationalists, and not only for moral reasons. Following Churchill, they believed that depredations tolerated in one place were likely to be repeated elsewhere—and, conversely, that beneficent political or economic policies exercised their own “domino effect” for the good. Since America’s security could be affected by events far from home, it was wiser to confront troubles early even if afar than to wait for them to ripen and grow nearer.

Third, neoconservatives, like (in this case) most conservatives, trusted in the efficacy of military force. They doubted that economic sanctions or UN intervention or diplomacy, per se, constituted meaningful alternatives for confronting evil or any determined adversary.

To this list, I would add a fourth tenet: namely, the belief in democracy both at home and abroad.

Note: this is an excellent article on the history of neo-conservatism and I would urge everyone to read the full thing, found here: The Past, Present and Future of NeoConservatism.

The "belief in democracy abroad" very definitely cut across the grain of traditional conservative thinking about what should govern American foreign policy, and the readiness of people in the Third World for liberal democratic regimes. But they were very optimistic about our reception in Iraq, some of them giving hostages to fortune with foolishly-optimistic projections for what would happen there.

And many mainstream conservatives, who were not full neo-cons, tended to go along with the belief that, in this case at least, we could spread democracy.

I appreciate that not many of this type of conservative appear on this Board. I told you we are a diverse movement. Maybe I can stand in for the real thing, since I am probably closest to the neo-cons of all the various trends within our conservative Tower of Babel.

"The Right Way to Argue: How Conservatives Can Prevail in OnLine Debate -- I devoted several paragraphs to this very topic."

Doug, please post in writing, share it, and I, when I have time would love to do the sequel.

I don't really fancy putting it up for this Board to look at. There are too many posters of a fairly low intellectual level here and I don't have the time to swat at every tedious non-sequitur and strawman mis-representation that a malicious scanning (I do not say reading) would generate. I suspect you know the people I mean. I'll send you a copy if you like. Almost all of my suggestions can be used equally by intelligent liberals, although I don't want them to be so used, since it will increase your political effectiveness. But what the hell, you can have it anyway.