lilacs
when they write a song about us
it will remind people
of the old couple
on the green bench
on the northeast corner
of the sheep meadow
reading separate papers
pinkiestouching
in the morning speckle
amongst the lilacs
Monday, April 23, 2007
a love poem
when they write a song about us
it will remind people
of the old couple
on the green bench
on the northeast corner
of the sheep meadow
reading separate papers
pinkiestouching
in the morning speckle
amongst the lilacs
Sunday, April 22, 2007
the sport spice report
i miss sport.
and you do too.
soooo, im gonna bust out the occaisional drive by sports report...
where to begin:
big flippin deal, three college students, who just so happen to be kids who are gonna get drafted by the league, admitted to smoking pot at some point in there lives...that distinguishes them from...hmm...4% of the college student population, and 90% of those folks are mormon.
barry gets closer.
hell hammerin hank can stay quiet as a mouse as far as i am concerned... dude had to face hate fueled by race, not by self inflicted cheatery. ill never feel sorry for barry, cause he is just such an ass. hell it ain't that big a deal, at his current pace, a rod is gonna pass him in 3 years (hitting 110 homers a year of course).
steve nash should be the mvp, but he won't.
thats all.
however if dirk wins, i can promise you that the mavs will not wina title. because i said so.
like the folks say...its red sox vs yankees and a handful of other teams apparently play baseball too.
de la hoya loses a decision.
the ufc is as much fun as it has ever been with the new crop o' talent from pride.
and that is about that.
im gonna have to whip out these drive by's more often...
the sports news of the day is always worth seasoning.
smooch
and you do too.
soooo, im gonna bust out the occaisional drive by sports report...
where to begin:
big flippin deal, three college students, who just so happen to be kids who are gonna get drafted by the league, admitted to smoking pot at some point in there lives...that distinguishes them from...hmm...4% of the college student population, and 90% of those folks are mormon.
barry gets closer.
hell hammerin hank can stay quiet as a mouse as far as i am concerned... dude had to face hate fueled by race, not by self inflicted cheatery. ill never feel sorry for barry, cause he is just such an ass. hell it ain't that big a deal, at his current pace, a rod is gonna pass him in 3 years (hitting 110 homers a year of course).
steve nash should be the mvp, but he won't.
thats all.
however if dirk wins, i can promise you that the mavs will not wina title. because i said so.
like the folks say...its red sox vs yankees and a handful of other teams apparently play baseball too.
de la hoya loses a decision.
the ufc is as much fun as it has ever been with the new crop o' talent from pride.
and that is about that.
im gonna have to whip out these drive by's more often...
the sports news of the day is always worth seasoning.
smooch
Thursday, April 19, 2007
sick and twisted on top of sick and twisted
Soooooo a crazy loner bastard freaks out, decides to pay the world back for all the mean nasty things it done did him by shooting a whole bunch of people dead...shocking? Of course. the same way that a dip in an ice cold lake is shocking. Surprising? Not really. I mean you knew the water was gonna be cold when you jumped in. Think about the relevant characteristics of the world we live in and it should come as no surprise that some shy, angry, marginalized kid takes out his real/imagined ouch on people who don't have the same real/imagined ouch by shooting 'em.
This sort of thing is just plain old bound to happen, sad, tragic and sucky as it is...you just have to accept that it is a consequence of living in the world that we do. What you do not have to accept are the absolutely absurd, pathetic, repulsive, nasty and plain old stupid arguments that are popping up about how to prevent this sort of deal and/or who to blame for it having happened...Since pointing out shitty arguments and explaining to you why those arguments are shitty is what I do, I’ll consider them over the next couple of days.
That completely insane (and either really stupid or a really good actor) coulter lady offered up an argument very similar to a bunch you are going to be hearing from the gun nuts for the next few months. Coulter's argument basically amounted to this: Mass shootings happen at places where the possession of guns is restricted. Schools and post offices restrict the carrying of weapons. Virginia Tech restricts folks from carrying guns (specifically, they do not honor state granted carry and conceal permits). Therefore mass shootings would either a) not happen at schools if folks were permitted to carry concealed guns on school grounds because insane freaks who intend to go out and kill a bunch of folks are aware of the gun laws and consciously choose to attack places where there are restrictions on concealed weapons knowing they will meet less resistance OR b) the mass shootings would not have been as bad if there were no restrictions on guns at Virginia Tech because there would have been a passer by carrying a weapon who would have gunned down the assailant.
Now, what I have presented above is a pretty generous version of ms. coulter's argument. Her argument gives very little justification as to why there is a causal relationship between gun restriction and mass shootings (she more or less offers the anecdotal evidence that shootings seem to happen at schools and post offices as proof that there is such a relationship...the avoidance of fallacious confusion betwixt corollary and causal relationships is apparently not something they teach them thar politico punditos these days). What allows ms coulter's argument to avoid the goofy assed correlation=causality problem is that she gives us some reasons, in the form of explanations as to why one leads to the other: Mass murderers would be scared away from schools if they didn’t prohibit concealed weapons and/or john rambo would inevitably be walkin' by and 'take the shooter out!' before s/he did too much damage. Soooooo, if we buy her reasons? Her argument is sorta kinda alright...maybe...(in that it might very well prove that it seems as if mass shootings might be less likely if we followed her advice (the notion that it would necessarily diminish the number of or eliminate them is just too idiotice to bother considering)). However, we cannot buy her reasons, because they just plain suck:
Reason a. Mass shooters make a conscious choice to shoot folks at schools because they are well aware that it is less likely that they will run into someone carrying a concealed weapon.
This ought to be a one sentence competency exam for participation in society, if you find it remotely appealing, you should be denied the right to vote, have kids, speak in public and/or belong to a book club.
Given what we know about the folks who have gone batty and shot a bunch of folks at a particular school, how high do you think concern about their well being in the face of someone with a concealed weapon ranks? Umm, I’m guessing right after the concern about what they should wear to prom. These folks have plenty of reasons to be at a school...whether it is where the peers who have committed imagined injustices against them just so happen to be, or it ends up being a place where a convenient number of relatively defenseless little kids hang out (the same kids that are responsible for whatever psychosis inspired hurty hurty in their heady head) on any given week day....the notion that shooters choose that particular location because it is absent the throngs or of warm hearted, well-intentioned concealed weapon carrying vigilantes that patrol our streets unappreciated and unnoticed is just ridiculous (and completely unsubstantiated).
Here is a little secret, just a fact to help you all out. No one other than wing nut gun fetishists even thinks about conceal and carry laws (If you are curious, here is a one question test to determine if you are a gun crazy whack job: Have you, at any time worried that the gun laws applying to handguns/ 'assault rifles' are important to your everyday life, and that your wellbeing and/or happiness would be profoundly and directly impacted by changes in them? If yes, your love of that hot steel in your hand has smooshed your rationality. I hate to be the one to tell you, guns just shouldn't be that important to your average joe.) I know that this is surprising news to those of you who sleep with a 9mm under your pillow and a desert 50 in the nightstand, but no one fucking cares. The rest of the population doesn’t even think about these things (even the violent sociopath crazies that want to kill a bunch of people). Most people assume that everywhere they go is free of folks with a gun in their shoe. If you ask fifty people what the conceal and carry laws in their state are, I guarantee you fewer than ten of them will have any fucking clue…Crazies who want to kill people are worried about other things…like the girl who turned down their advances at the 6th grade school dance, the kid who whooped their ass in gym class or the time that uncle willy diddled them in the broom closet.
In short the first reason is just plain lame for a couple reasons…No one (including, and perhaps expecially, crazy killers) knows or cares about concealed weapons laws, nor do people perceive that those laws have any real effect on the percentage of gun toting vigilantes in any one area (because most folks assume that wherever they go is free of folks with a glock in their sock). SOOO we have no reason to believe that laws regarding concealed weapons have absolutely anything to do with the frequency of mass shootings in particular locations.
Now, because we are the spice and we want to give folks the benefit of the doubt, maybe we can give ms. coulter’s argument a few more and sharper teeth. If she were to have claimed that we ought to turn places like schools into the sorts of places where folks ought to reasonably expect to encounter some sort of armed resistance if they were gonna try to start shooting folks….then sure, that might work. If, for example, we were to require that all teachers/professors carry a weapon then yes I absolutely agree that there would likely be fewer mass shooting deaths taking place in schools. However, I sure as shit do not believe that this is an option that ms. coulter (and/or anyone else) would want for the following reasons:
1. It would cost a lot of money to arm and train all those folks and I can promise you ms coulter doesn’t want more taxes to pay for teacher weapons training (or anything else for that matter).
2. I cannot assure you that school related gun deaths would decrease (given the numbers I can all but promise they would increase) because there would be plenty of accidental deaths, plenty of misplaced and stolen weapons and plenty of crazy ass teachers pulling the trigger.
3. Do you really want teachers to have guns? What happens when the wrong person accidentally walks into the wrong room and spooks dr. nervous nelly into popping off a couple rounds?
Reason b
If there were no laws prohibiting concealed weapons on campus, superhero sam would have been around the corner packing heat and he would have run in, guns ablazin’ and saved the day!
Ok this reason is so stupid that it almost feels like cheating to pick on it. It really ought to be a straw man somewhere because no one would actually make an argument that is this bad. Alas, ms coulter would. It is so obviously the result of delusional gun nut vigilante fantasy that I feel bad that I am going to ruin someones dream life by pointing out its goofiness. Well, here’s the deal, it is nice to fantasize about being superman, but it is just a fantasy. There is absolutely no way of assuring that there would be someone on that campus with a gun, in the right place at the right time to do anything about the Virginia Tech shootings no matter what laws were in place. The notion that merely having had a law in place which would have permitted someone to legally carry a concealed weapon onto that campus would have increased the chances that someone would have actually carried a concealed weapon onto that campus and been in the position to do something to prevent the whole deal is the same argument that my issuing a press release declaring myself eligible for the NBA draft increases the likelihood that I will get drafted.
I hope you al realize how absurd that is.
I hope you realize why that is all that needs to be said.
SOOOOO, what are the morals of today’s story: Woulda, shoulda, coulda is easy as pie and people suck. It is really easy to come up with half assed knee jerk bullshit reactionary solutions to the problems after the fact, particularly when youa re never going to be responsible or accountable for the suggestions you make ever actually being put into place.
Selfish jerks are going to use this horrible deal to try to advance their own personal or political agendas for really terrible reasons. The gun lobby is bound to be saying absurd shit, as are the folks who wnat to ban guns. Lucky for you, you have the spice. So you won’t let anyone get away with shitty reasons. More horrid scumbags trying to use tragedy to advance their own idiocy tomorrow…
smooch
This sort of thing is just plain old bound to happen, sad, tragic and sucky as it is...you just have to accept that it is a consequence of living in the world that we do. What you do not have to accept are the absolutely absurd, pathetic, repulsive, nasty and plain old stupid arguments that are popping up about how to prevent this sort of deal and/or who to blame for it having happened...Since pointing out shitty arguments and explaining to you why those arguments are shitty is what I do, I’ll consider them over the next couple of days.
That completely insane (and either really stupid or a really good actor) coulter lady offered up an argument very similar to a bunch you are going to be hearing from the gun nuts for the next few months. Coulter's argument basically amounted to this: Mass shootings happen at places where the possession of guns is restricted. Schools and post offices restrict the carrying of weapons. Virginia Tech restricts folks from carrying guns (specifically, they do not honor state granted carry and conceal permits). Therefore mass shootings would either a) not happen at schools if folks were permitted to carry concealed guns on school grounds because insane freaks who intend to go out and kill a bunch of folks are aware of the gun laws and consciously choose to attack places where there are restrictions on concealed weapons knowing they will meet less resistance OR b) the mass shootings would not have been as bad if there were no restrictions on guns at Virginia Tech because there would have been a passer by carrying a weapon who would have gunned down the assailant.
Now, what I have presented above is a pretty generous version of ms. coulter's argument. Her argument gives very little justification as to why there is a causal relationship between gun restriction and mass shootings (she more or less offers the anecdotal evidence that shootings seem to happen at schools and post offices as proof that there is such a relationship...the avoidance of fallacious confusion betwixt corollary and causal relationships is apparently not something they teach them thar politico punditos these days). What allows ms coulter's argument to avoid the goofy assed correlation=causality problem is that she gives us some reasons, in the form of explanations as to why one leads to the other: Mass murderers would be scared away from schools if they didn’t prohibit concealed weapons and/or john rambo would inevitably be walkin' by and 'take the shooter out!' before s/he did too much damage. Soooooo, if we buy her reasons? Her argument is sorta kinda alright...maybe...(in that it might very well prove that it seems as if mass shootings might be less likely if we followed her advice (the notion that it would necessarily diminish the number of or eliminate them is just too idiotice to bother considering)). However, we cannot buy her reasons, because they just plain suck:
Reason a. Mass shooters make a conscious choice to shoot folks at schools because they are well aware that it is less likely that they will run into someone carrying a concealed weapon.
This ought to be a one sentence competency exam for participation in society, if you find it remotely appealing, you should be denied the right to vote, have kids, speak in public and/or belong to a book club.
Given what we know about the folks who have gone batty and shot a bunch of folks at a particular school, how high do you think concern about their well being in the face of someone with a concealed weapon ranks? Umm, I’m guessing right after the concern about what they should wear to prom. These folks have plenty of reasons to be at a school...whether it is where the peers who have committed imagined injustices against them just so happen to be, or it ends up being a place where a convenient number of relatively defenseless little kids hang out (the same kids that are responsible for whatever psychosis inspired hurty hurty in their heady head) on any given week day....the notion that shooters choose that particular location because it is absent the throngs or of warm hearted, well-intentioned concealed weapon carrying vigilantes that patrol our streets unappreciated and unnoticed is just ridiculous (and completely unsubstantiated).
Here is a little secret, just a fact to help you all out. No one other than wing nut gun fetishists even thinks about conceal and carry laws (If you are curious, here is a one question test to determine if you are a gun crazy whack job: Have you, at any time worried that the gun laws applying to handguns/ 'assault rifles' are important to your everyday life, and that your wellbeing and/or happiness would be profoundly and directly impacted by changes in them? If yes, your love of that hot steel in your hand has smooshed your rationality. I hate to be the one to tell you, guns just shouldn't be that important to your average joe.) I know that this is surprising news to those of you who sleep with a 9mm under your pillow and a desert 50 in the nightstand, but no one fucking cares. The rest of the population doesn’t even think about these things (even the violent sociopath crazies that want to kill a bunch of people). Most people assume that everywhere they go is free of folks with a gun in their shoe. If you ask fifty people what the conceal and carry laws in their state are, I guarantee you fewer than ten of them will have any fucking clue…Crazies who want to kill people are worried about other things…like the girl who turned down their advances at the 6th grade school dance, the kid who whooped their ass in gym class or the time that uncle willy diddled them in the broom closet.
In short the first reason is just plain lame for a couple reasons…No one (including, and perhaps expecially, crazy killers) knows or cares about concealed weapons laws, nor do people perceive that those laws have any real effect on the percentage of gun toting vigilantes in any one area (because most folks assume that wherever they go is free of folks with a glock in their sock). SOOO we have no reason to believe that laws regarding concealed weapons have absolutely anything to do with the frequency of mass shootings in particular locations.
Now, because we are the spice and we want to give folks the benefit of the doubt, maybe we can give ms. coulter’s argument a few more and sharper teeth. If she were to have claimed that we ought to turn places like schools into the sorts of places where folks ought to reasonably expect to encounter some sort of armed resistance if they were gonna try to start shooting folks….then sure, that might work. If, for example, we were to require that all teachers/professors carry a weapon then yes I absolutely agree that there would likely be fewer mass shooting deaths taking place in schools. However, I sure as shit do not believe that this is an option that ms. coulter (and/or anyone else) would want for the following reasons:
1. It would cost a lot of money to arm and train all those folks and I can promise you ms coulter doesn’t want more taxes to pay for teacher weapons training (or anything else for that matter).
2. I cannot assure you that school related gun deaths would decrease (given the numbers I can all but promise they would increase) because there would be plenty of accidental deaths, plenty of misplaced and stolen weapons and plenty of crazy ass teachers pulling the trigger.
3. Do you really want teachers to have guns? What happens when the wrong person accidentally walks into the wrong room and spooks dr. nervous nelly into popping off a couple rounds?
Reason b
If there were no laws prohibiting concealed weapons on campus, superhero sam would have been around the corner packing heat and he would have run in, guns ablazin’ and saved the day!
Ok this reason is so stupid that it almost feels like cheating to pick on it. It really ought to be a straw man somewhere because no one would actually make an argument that is this bad. Alas, ms coulter would. It is so obviously the result of delusional gun nut vigilante fantasy that I feel bad that I am going to ruin someones dream life by pointing out its goofiness. Well, here’s the deal, it is nice to fantasize about being superman, but it is just a fantasy. There is absolutely no way of assuring that there would be someone on that campus with a gun, in the right place at the right time to do anything about the Virginia Tech shootings no matter what laws were in place. The notion that merely having had a law in place which would have permitted someone to legally carry a concealed weapon onto that campus would have increased the chances that someone would have actually carried a concealed weapon onto that campus and been in the position to do something to prevent the whole deal is the same argument that my issuing a press release declaring myself eligible for the NBA draft increases the likelihood that I will get drafted.
I hope you al realize how absurd that is.
I hope you realize why that is all that needs to be said.
SOOOOO, what are the morals of today’s story: Woulda, shoulda, coulda is easy as pie and people suck. It is really easy to come up with half assed knee jerk bullshit reactionary solutions to the problems after the fact, particularly when youa re never going to be responsible or accountable for the suggestions you make ever actually being put into place.
Selfish jerks are going to use this horrible deal to try to advance their own personal or political agendas for really terrible reasons. The gun lobby is bound to be saying absurd shit, as are the folks who wnat to ban guns. Lucky for you, you have the spice. So you won’t let anyone get away with shitty reasons. More horrid scumbags trying to use tragedy to advance their own idiocy tomorrow…
smooch
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
some bite sized poems to distract from the icky
6 haiku about poetry
#1
there there little one
he did not mean it when he
spoke to you with math
#2
some cried when he read
about things wrong with the world
i felt uncomfy
#3
sun through glass through shade
burnt yellow, toasty curry
prettier than smart
#4
do not ever trust
anyone who writes about
politics or sex
#5
birds in the lilac
move like magnets...push pull push
skitter skitter hop
#6
'language poetry'
like carving a pumpkin with
a water balloon
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Natural (F)Law Theory..Gayness Continued and Concluded
sorry for the delay...i been sick and busy.
the spice moves on...
a last bit about gayness...and then????
Closely associated with the Divine Command theory I babbled about last time is Natural Law Theory. The two end up being linked because they both have a wee bit of common theistic history. Divine command is the morality of the church a long long time ago, Natural Law theory? The morality of the church a long time ago (and well to this berry day for some.). The name most often associated with Natural Law Theory is Aquinas. The problem is that the version that St. Tommy offered, if we are to read it generously, doesn't resemble the sort that your average person who is commited to the deal advocates today...
To over simplify Aquinas' account, the deal was this:
There is a divine law (because there has to be or the world just wouldn't make much sense).
God done gave us the key to understanding the divine law when he done gave us reason.
Reason is the key because we are the only things that got it and we alone were made in God's image, so it makes sense that reason is pretty darned special.
In that we have reason, a chunk of our purpose must be to use it (cause god wouldn't have done givin us reason for no reason).
It only makes sense (is rational) that things oughtta fulfill their purpose.
Therefore, in order to take full advantage of our faculties and rationality we must use reason to create our human laws because its the bestest tool for the job and part of our purpose is to be rational...(this is pretty darned much the natural law...we have to do what is natural to us the same way that beavers ought to chew wood).
The divine law is rational and to the degree that we formulate moral rules that are rational and in accord with god's word, our law (the human law) is in accord with the divine law and it rocks the moral hizouse...
Now this should remind all you wanna be philosophers out there of Aristotle's teleology based virtue ethic...Aristotle too woulda said fulfilling one's purpose is the way to go, he woulda also thought that reason was particularly important...but he wouldn't have put God in the picture. For Aquinas the natural law, the purposefulness of the world becomes a wee bit more important because rather that that purposefulness just being a consequence of the way the world works, it is handed down by God. So fulfilling one's purpose is pretty damned important (because, well God done gave everything it's particular purpose).
SOOOOO, what does that have to do with gay humping?
Well, quite a bit actually. It's not hard to see where the argument is gonna go. If part of our obligation is to act according to our divinely granted purpose, then anytime we deviate from that purpose we are doing a naughty thing. Obviously you have a willy or a puss for a particular purpose (to have babies) therefore any use of that willy or puss for any other activity is in violation of its intended purpose, is irrational, ungodly and morally wrong.
Now, although absurdly over-simplified, this version of natural law theory is roughly 4,328 times as sophisticated as the arguments you will hear regarding how gayness is 'un-natural'. Alas, even this slightly fleshed out version is pretty darned shitty. Because...well...no one who advocates it is willing or able to consistently adhere to it. Given that one of the premises in the whole deal is that reason is king, embracing a contradiction is going to be a pretty darned tough pill to swallow. Contradiction is one thing we can all agree is just plain irrational (and if you don't agree, you are using a definition of 'reason' that is so far removed from history and/or convention that you oughta stick to poetry).
The contradiction rears its ugly little head when we start considering purposes and nature...
If we are to stick to the simplified version of natural law provided above...we have a wee bit of a problem when we try to figure out the purposefulness deal because things have more than one purpose...one can use sex organs to make babies, for pleasure, to make cash, to help create intimacy in a relationship etc. Noone can claim that baby making is the only true purpose of the junk in your shorts, because there are just so darned many. However, if you are willing to commit to the notion that the baby making purpose is THE REAL purpose, and the use of one's naughty bits for anything other than that purpose is morally wrong then it MUST follow not only that diddling your own button is wrong but that I am doing something morally wrong when I wink at you or roll my eyes because certainly those aren't the REAL purposes of my eyeballs...in fact, if things can only have one REAL purpose then at least one (winking or rolling) MUST be at least as morally wrong as gay humping...and, well no one is trying to prevent eye rollers from getting married. No one will consistently commit to the notion that each organ that we have only has one real purpose and that any other use is morally wrong. If one cannot commit to that claim, then they cannot commit to the notion that gay humping is wrong on the grounds that it violates the purpose of your naughty bits.
Now, plenty of other seriously flawed reasons have been given under the name of natural law (more often than not unwittingly)...these reasons often differ from the account above in terms of the definition of 'natural'....some of those equally bad (if not worse) arguments to consider and dismiss:
The notion that 'natural' really means normal...or fitting within the realm of what is considered normal...
This is just ridiculous. Morality and normalcy don't have a damned thing to do with one another (and in fact we can prove that indeed they cannot have a necessary connection) BUT for the sake of brevity, all we need to do to effectively refute this idiotic argument is to point out that by these standards we'd get rid of anyone and everyone who happens to be exceptional as morally abhorrant. Noone wants to consider a prodigy or a smarty pants or someone who cultivates a partiucular talent morally wrong but practicing a particular skill all day is certainly abnormal. Unless you want to claim that every kid who is first chair in his schools orchestra is morally wrong because kids that age shouldn't practice their instrument so darned much you gotta give up on this absurd position...in order to hold this view, you just have to be an idiot or a liar.
Folks sure as hell don't think gay humping is unnatural in the sense that it violates the 'laws of nature' (this is what the person who calims 'animals dont do it!' is really getting after).
Since when have the laws of nature determined right or wrong? Never, of course. I have a bum ticker, naturally my heart is gonna give out by like forty-five...I sure as hell don't think i will be doing something morally wrong by putting in the artificial valve that is gonna keep me alive...and neither do you. You like man's accomplishments and creations...If 'natural', in this sense, is the standard for morality then you are going to have to give up on social convention in it's entirety, technology, medicine, art etc. because all of those things are inventions of man and consequently immoral. If you claim to want to get rid of all those things? Well you are just an idiot or a liar.
The 'it is icky' argument isn't going to hold either...'gayness seems gross so it is unnatural. dudes are naturally repulsed by dudes and women by women'. That is just plain stupid. Brain surgery is icky too, that doesn't mean it is morally wrong. If you claim to believe this? Yup...idiot or liar. This, by the way, is also why those of you who think icky pictures of blood covered baby monkeys are important to the 'abortion' argument are sorta jsut plain stupid too...just cause something is gross or difficult to looka t, sure as shit doesn't make it morally wrong. Fallacies are sure easy to come by, aren't they...
SOOOOO, having considered a handful of the arguments as to why gay humping is morally wrong I hope to have brought you to the only rational understanding one can have regarding the moral nature of the issue...there is no RATIONAL justification for the belief that homosexuality/homosexual behavior is in and of itself morally wrong...
Because the spice is here for you, I'll let you know that anytime you make (or attempt to make) an argument that gayness is somehow morally wrong you are sorta kinda advertizing that you are a thoughtless baffoon. However, i'll be happy to listen any arguments you've got and explain to you why they make you sound like a complete idiot before you say them out loud to anyone else.
other than that, i am moving on. i don't even remember what inspired the gay rant (i think it was general so and so saying such and such a month ago and the idiotic discussions the he inspired)...i got bigger and better things to worry about now. sooo, next spice report? either some poetry or some thoughts about crazy kids with guns.
smooch
the spice moves on...
a last bit about gayness...and then????
Closely associated with the Divine Command theory I babbled about last time is Natural Law Theory. The two end up being linked because they both have a wee bit of common theistic history. Divine command is the morality of the church a long long time ago, Natural Law theory? The morality of the church a long time ago (and well to this berry day for some.). The name most often associated with Natural Law Theory is Aquinas. The problem is that the version that St. Tommy offered, if we are to read it generously, doesn't resemble the sort that your average person who is commited to the deal advocates today...
To over simplify Aquinas' account, the deal was this:
There is a divine law (because there has to be or the world just wouldn't make much sense).
God done gave us the key to understanding the divine law when he done gave us reason.
Reason is the key because we are the only things that got it and we alone were made in God's image, so it makes sense that reason is pretty darned special.
In that we have reason, a chunk of our purpose must be to use it (cause god wouldn't have done givin us reason for no reason).
It only makes sense (is rational) that things oughtta fulfill their purpose.
Therefore, in order to take full advantage of our faculties and rationality we must use reason to create our human laws because its the bestest tool for the job and part of our purpose is to be rational...(this is pretty darned much the natural law...we have to do what is natural to us the same way that beavers ought to chew wood).
The divine law is rational and to the degree that we formulate moral rules that are rational and in accord with god's word, our law (the human law) is in accord with the divine law and it rocks the moral hizouse...
Now this should remind all you wanna be philosophers out there of Aristotle's teleology based virtue ethic...Aristotle too woulda said fulfilling one's purpose is the way to go, he woulda also thought that reason was particularly important...but he wouldn't have put God in the picture. For Aquinas the natural law, the purposefulness of the world becomes a wee bit more important because rather that that purposefulness just being a consequence of the way the world works, it is handed down by God. So fulfilling one's purpose is pretty damned important (because, well God done gave everything it's particular purpose).
SOOOOO, what does that have to do with gay humping?
Well, quite a bit actually. It's not hard to see where the argument is gonna go. If part of our obligation is to act according to our divinely granted purpose, then anytime we deviate from that purpose we are doing a naughty thing. Obviously you have a willy or a puss for a particular purpose (to have babies) therefore any use of that willy or puss for any other activity is in violation of its intended purpose, is irrational, ungodly and morally wrong.
Now, although absurdly over-simplified, this version of natural law theory is roughly 4,328 times as sophisticated as the arguments you will hear regarding how gayness is 'un-natural'. Alas, even this slightly fleshed out version is pretty darned shitty. Because...well...no one who advocates it is willing or able to consistently adhere to it. Given that one of the premises in the whole deal is that reason is king, embracing a contradiction is going to be a pretty darned tough pill to swallow. Contradiction is one thing we can all agree is just plain irrational (and if you don't agree, you are using a definition of 'reason' that is so far removed from history and/or convention that you oughta stick to poetry).
The contradiction rears its ugly little head when we start considering purposes and nature...
If we are to stick to the simplified version of natural law provided above...we have a wee bit of a problem when we try to figure out the purposefulness deal because things have more than one purpose...one can use sex organs to make babies, for pleasure, to make cash, to help create intimacy in a relationship etc. Noone can claim that baby making is the only true purpose of the junk in your shorts, because there are just so darned many. However, if you are willing to commit to the notion that the baby making purpose is THE REAL purpose, and the use of one's naughty bits for anything other than that purpose is morally wrong then it MUST follow not only that diddling your own button is wrong but that I am doing something morally wrong when I wink at you or roll my eyes because certainly those aren't the REAL purposes of my eyeballs...in fact, if things can only have one REAL purpose then at least one (winking or rolling) MUST be at least as morally wrong as gay humping...and, well no one is trying to prevent eye rollers from getting married. No one will consistently commit to the notion that each organ that we have only has one real purpose and that any other use is morally wrong. If one cannot commit to that claim, then they cannot commit to the notion that gay humping is wrong on the grounds that it violates the purpose of your naughty bits.
Now, plenty of other seriously flawed reasons have been given under the name of natural law (more often than not unwittingly)...these reasons often differ from the account above in terms of the definition of 'natural'....some of those equally bad (if not worse) arguments to consider and dismiss:
The notion that 'natural' really means normal...or fitting within the realm of what is considered normal...
This is just ridiculous. Morality and normalcy don't have a damned thing to do with one another (and in fact we can prove that indeed they cannot have a necessary connection) BUT for the sake of brevity, all we need to do to effectively refute this idiotic argument is to point out that by these standards we'd get rid of anyone and everyone who happens to be exceptional as morally abhorrant. Noone wants to consider a prodigy or a smarty pants or someone who cultivates a partiucular talent morally wrong but practicing a particular skill all day is certainly abnormal. Unless you want to claim that every kid who is first chair in his schools orchestra is morally wrong because kids that age shouldn't practice their instrument so darned much you gotta give up on this absurd position...in order to hold this view, you just have to be an idiot or a liar.
Folks sure as hell don't think gay humping is unnatural in the sense that it violates the 'laws of nature' (this is what the person who calims 'animals dont do it!' is really getting after).
Since when have the laws of nature determined right or wrong? Never, of course. I have a bum ticker, naturally my heart is gonna give out by like forty-five...I sure as hell don't think i will be doing something morally wrong by putting in the artificial valve that is gonna keep me alive...and neither do you. You like man's accomplishments and creations...If 'natural', in this sense, is the standard for morality then you are going to have to give up on social convention in it's entirety, technology, medicine, art etc. because all of those things are inventions of man and consequently immoral. If you claim to want to get rid of all those things? Well you are just an idiot or a liar.
The 'it is icky' argument isn't going to hold either...'gayness seems gross so it is unnatural. dudes are naturally repulsed by dudes and women by women'. That is just plain stupid. Brain surgery is icky too, that doesn't mean it is morally wrong. If you claim to believe this? Yup...idiot or liar. This, by the way, is also why those of you who think icky pictures of blood covered baby monkeys are important to the 'abortion' argument are sorta jsut plain stupid too...just cause something is gross or difficult to looka t, sure as shit doesn't make it morally wrong. Fallacies are sure easy to come by, aren't they...
SOOOOO, having considered a handful of the arguments as to why gay humping is morally wrong I hope to have brought you to the only rational understanding one can have regarding the moral nature of the issue...there is no RATIONAL justification for the belief that homosexuality/homosexual behavior is in and of itself morally wrong...
Because the spice is here for you, I'll let you know that anytime you make (or attempt to make) an argument that gayness is somehow morally wrong you are sorta kinda advertizing that you are a thoughtless baffoon. However, i'll be happy to listen any arguments you've got and explain to you why they make you sound like a complete idiot before you say them out loud to anyone else.
other than that, i am moving on. i don't even remember what inspired the gay rant (i think it was general so and so saying such and such a month ago and the idiotic discussions the he inspired)...i got bigger and better things to worry about now. sooo, next spice report? either some poetry or some thoughts about crazy kids with guns.
smooch
Saturday, March 17, 2007
gayness considered, completely and totally for the last friggen time
If you are gonna teach an introductory ethics class, you really oughta include homosexuality in your applied section...not because it is the most pressing moral concern facing...well...anyone, not because it is the most important issue of the twenty-first century and not because it is a really complicated, theoretically challenging topic. The reason you have to consider it is because it may be the issue that inspires the largest variety of absolutely horrible, useless, completely pathetic arguments around.
Sadly, if you were to ask 100 people their 'moral' stance regarding homosexuality you will get fewer than five reasonable answers. The popular arguments for both sides just plain suck. Folks advocate completely incoherent notions of morality when they talk about gay stuff, or they advocate moral standards that they don't really believe in...
Sooooooooo...since my self appointed position here is common sense distributor/reason provider AND since this topic seems to actually interest folks (you should see the absurd amount of time dedicated to the topic on various blogs) I'm gonna do you all a favor and explain why the arguments you hear (and likely some you hold) are completey friggen lame. Hopefully this will allow each and every last one of you to move the hell on and spend your energy on more interesting social, moral and/or political concerns.
So, as my gift to you I'll go over the really common, really shitty arguments, on both sides of the gayness/morality discussion, over the course of the next few of days.
We'll start with the popular arguments for why gayness is just plain wrong...
i. 'God said so...'
Any sort of Divine Command theory is going to suffer from a number of problems that are so darned problematic as to make the theory pretty damned useless when it comes to making real world moral decisions...I'll run through 'em for you, even though i probably shouldn't have to.
Perhaps the most obvious troubles that you'll arrive at in attempting to derive morality from divine command are the practical problems: 'God said blah blah blah....' cannot serve as reasonable justification for a particular moral belief because there are so darned many competing accounts of who God is and what God said.
There are roughly four hundred, ninety-three thousand and twenty-one different conceptions of God. All of which have roughly THE EXACT SAME justification for their existence. So which one do we follow? If we narrow it down to...say... a Christian conception, which interpretation? Catholic? Fundamentalist? Should I ask a Baptist or a Seventh-Day Adventist? They sure as heck aren't gonna agree on what is morally kosher and what ain't...so how do i decide? Let's say I somehow narrow it down even further (I'll go with Catholic), then our question is which sort of Catholic? What sort of interpretation of the Bible? Even if i can find a particular flavor of religion I like (we'll stick with Catholic...still), what about the questions that the Bible doesn't answer specifically? and/or those where it seems to give conflicting answers (if any answers at all)? The bible doesn't (despite what you may have heard) specifically say that abortion is wrong. So...is abortion wrong because the Bible apparently indicates that God 'knew' me before I was born? OR is it not really a big deal because the old testament flavored penalty for sort of/kind of accidentally 'killing' a fetus is to pay a little restitution?
So, the practical problems for divine comman are pretty darned hard to get around. How on earth do we decide which God? Which interpreter of his word? If we have a certain interpreter how do we reconcile the conflicting, misleading and/or contradictory stuff that seems to be all over the place in just about every religion? Seems like a totally hopeless pain in the ass doesn't it? That ain't even the half of it...
Although determining what God said may seem to be a practical, epistemological problem, it doesn't entail that a Divine Command theory is wrong (just that it may be impossible to justify. The really damning criticism of Divine Command theory is pretty darned simple: it is impossible for a rational being to embrace the notion that what justifies a moral claim (in other words, what makes the moral claim 'right') is merely that God said so....why? Because, if the only demand is that God said it, pronounced it or issued the rule, it is not only entirely arbitrary it also entails the possibility of a contradiction. If there is the possibility of a contradiction...well, that just can't fly. For example: If all that is required for a particular action to be morally right (or wrong) is that God say so, then he can say whatever the heck he wants...He may very well say, ' kill every dude with an italian horn and visible chest hair!' and that then would be a moral imperative, it would be the right thing to do. Not only that, but s/he could say, 'You must both kill the gold chain wearing, chest hair flaunting guido's and not kill them!'...The problem, i hope, is apparent. Not only could it be the case that God is reduced to an arbitrary bossy pants, but there is no prohibition on his/her contradicting him/herself. And that can't work for roughly a million reasons (not the least of which is that if you allow for contradiciton you can do or believe anything.)
Now, i imagine a protest from the back of the room, 'Hey! Dumbass, God wouldn't command stupid stuff like that because he is all good and loving and knowing AND you idiot he wouldn't contradict himself because he is rational!' Well, here is the deal...If you are even tempted to respond in that manner you have already conceded that Divine Command just don't work. If you are saying that God is too darned nice to command that we kill folks who have horrible personal style...then you have given up on the notion that God saying something is what makes it right (go and read Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates makes the same sort of point much better than I do.) What you are saying is that it is the nice, good, loving thing to do and that is why God commands it. If God commands it for a reason then that reason is part of the justification for why it is right. If that reason is part of what makes it right, then you don't believe in Divine Command.
Similarly let's consider the contradiction example: God says, 'Kill those guido bastards! AND Don't kill those guido bastards!'. The objection was, 'God wouldn't say something contradictory you idiot!' Well, why not? The answer, inevitably is, "...because God isn't stupid. He is rational!' Well, if he is rational then you are relying on reason to justify the rightness or wrongness of the claim, not just his word...Either way? you are damned if you do and damned if you don't (pun thoroughly and completely intended).
So, let's review....
Divine command just can't work. It can't help us make good moral decisions because there are too darned many competing accounts and no meaningfully relevant difference with regard to the evidence/justification for any of them. If help making moral decisions is something we want to do, Divine Command fails miserably because it won't be convincing to a rational agent... Perhaps more important is the logical problem. If the only justification we require for a moral claim is that God said so, the claims become arbitrary and lame. God could just be bossing us around for no good reason. If, however, we say that he has any sort of reason for what he commands, we concede that his saying so isn't what made the claim right in the first place and we refute the notion of Divine Command before it gets off the ground...
Divine command theory is just plain weak, whether you are talking about homosexuality or how many days you ought to refrain from sitting in the chair of a woman who was having her period. If however, you want to adopt it as consistently as possible, you best embrace every damned law in the Bible...from the shape and length of your beard to the crops you are gonna grow next to one another, because if you don't your position isn't even strong enough to demand the objections I offer here. You are conceding that interpretation is cool and your word, your interpretation of God's word is cool, therefore you have to concede that any other interpretation is cool too (unless of course you have some sort of direct access to god that I don't have...which you don't and can't).
All in all, Divine Command is a tough position to hold. To commit to it in a remotely consistent way, you would need to be willing to follow each and every prohibition the bible makes (which of course you aren't) and even if you were, you still wouldn't have any reason to believe that your beliefs were better than the muslim's or jew's around the block.
Our consideration of Divine Command leads us to a slightly more sophisticated (emphasis on slightly) slightly more defensable (still emphasizing slightly) position in the western tradition that is often used to condemn homosexuality on moral grounds: Natural Law Theory. Sadly, Natural Law is not going to offer us any help with regards to determining whether or not homosexuality is wrong because(as we will see next time) it (articularly as it is used in the debate regarding the right and wrong of gayness) is ridiculously problematic as well.
Sadly, if you were to ask 100 people their 'moral' stance regarding homosexuality you will get fewer than five reasonable answers. The popular arguments for both sides just plain suck. Folks advocate completely incoherent notions of morality when they talk about gay stuff, or they advocate moral standards that they don't really believe in...
Sooooooooo...since my self appointed position here is common sense distributor/reason provider AND since this topic seems to actually interest folks (you should see the absurd amount of time dedicated to the topic on various blogs) I'm gonna do you all a favor and explain why the arguments you hear (and likely some you hold) are completey friggen lame. Hopefully this will allow each and every last one of you to move the hell on and spend your energy on more interesting social, moral and/or political concerns.
So, as my gift to you I'll go over the really common, really shitty arguments, on both sides of the gayness/morality discussion, over the course of the next few of days.
We'll start with the popular arguments for why gayness is just plain wrong...
i. 'God said so...'
Any sort of Divine Command theory is going to suffer from a number of problems that are so darned problematic as to make the theory pretty damned useless when it comes to making real world moral decisions...I'll run through 'em for you, even though i probably shouldn't have to.
Perhaps the most obvious troubles that you'll arrive at in attempting to derive morality from divine command are the practical problems: 'God said blah blah blah....' cannot serve as reasonable justification for a particular moral belief because there are so darned many competing accounts of who God is and what God said.
There are roughly four hundred, ninety-three thousand and twenty-one different conceptions of God. All of which have roughly THE EXACT SAME justification for their existence. So which one do we follow? If we narrow it down to...say... a Christian conception, which interpretation? Catholic? Fundamentalist? Should I ask a Baptist or a Seventh-Day Adventist? They sure as heck aren't gonna agree on what is morally kosher and what ain't...so how do i decide? Let's say I somehow narrow it down even further (I'll go with Catholic), then our question is which sort of Catholic? What sort of interpretation of the Bible? Even if i can find a particular flavor of religion I like (we'll stick with Catholic...still), what about the questions that the Bible doesn't answer specifically? and/or those where it seems to give conflicting answers (if any answers at all)? The bible doesn't (despite what you may have heard) specifically say that abortion is wrong. So...is abortion wrong because the Bible apparently indicates that God 'knew' me before I was born? OR is it not really a big deal because the old testament flavored penalty for sort of/kind of accidentally 'killing' a fetus is to pay a little restitution?
So, the practical problems for divine comman are pretty darned hard to get around. How on earth do we decide which God? Which interpreter of his word? If we have a certain interpreter how do we reconcile the conflicting, misleading and/or contradictory stuff that seems to be all over the place in just about every religion? Seems like a totally hopeless pain in the ass doesn't it? That ain't even the half of it...
Although determining what God said may seem to be a practical, epistemological problem, it doesn't entail that a Divine Command theory is wrong (just that it may be impossible to justify. The really damning criticism of Divine Command theory is pretty darned simple: it is impossible for a rational being to embrace the notion that what justifies a moral claim (in other words, what makes the moral claim 'right') is merely that God said so....why? Because, if the only demand is that God said it, pronounced it or issued the rule, it is not only entirely arbitrary it also entails the possibility of a contradiction. If there is the possibility of a contradiction...well, that just can't fly. For example: If all that is required for a particular action to be morally right (or wrong) is that God say so, then he can say whatever the heck he wants...He may very well say, ' kill every dude with an italian horn and visible chest hair!' and that then would be a moral imperative, it would be the right thing to do. Not only that, but s/he could say, 'You must both kill the gold chain wearing, chest hair flaunting guido's and not kill them!'...The problem, i hope, is apparent. Not only could it be the case that God is reduced to an arbitrary bossy pants, but there is no prohibition on his/her contradicting him/herself. And that can't work for roughly a million reasons (not the least of which is that if you allow for contradiciton you can do or believe anything.)
Now, i imagine a protest from the back of the room, 'Hey! Dumbass, God wouldn't command stupid stuff like that because he is all good and loving and knowing AND you idiot he wouldn't contradict himself because he is rational!' Well, here is the deal...If you are even tempted to respond in that manner you have already conceded that Divine Command just don't work. If you are saying that God is too darned nice to command that we kill folks who have horrible personal style...then you have given up on the notion that God saying something is what makes it right (go and read Plato's Euthyphro, Socrates makes the same sort of point much better than I do.) What you are saying is that it is the nice, good, loving thing to do and that is why God commands it. If God commands it for a reason then that reason is part of the justification for why it is right. If that reason is part of what makes it right, then you don't believe in Divine Command.
Similarly let's consider the contradiction example: God says, 'Kill those guido bastards! AND Don't kill those guido bastards!'. The objection was, 'God wouldn't say something contradictory you idiot!' Well, why not? The answer, inevitably is, "...because God isn't stupid. He is rational!' Well, if he is rational then you are relying on reason to justify the rightness or wrongness of the claim, not just his word...Either way? you are damned if you do and damned if you don't (pun thoroughly and completely intended).
So, let's review....
Divine command just can't work. It can't help us make good moral decisions because there are too darned many competing accounts and no meaningfully relevant difference with regard to the evidence/justification for any of them. If help making moral decisions is something we want to do, Divine Command fails miserably because it won't be convincing to a rational agent... Perhaps more important is the logical problem. If the only justification we require for a moral claim is that God said so, the claims become arbitrary and lame. God could just be bossing us around for no good reason. If, however, we say that he has any sort of reason for what he commands, we concede that his saying so isn't what made the claim right in the first place and we refute the notion of Divine Command before it gets off the ground...
Divine command theory is just plain weak, whether you are talking about homosexuality or how many days you ought to refrain from sitting in the chair of a woman who was having her period. If however, you want to adopt it as consistently as possible, you best embrace every damned law in the Bible...from the shape and length of your beard to the crops you are gonna grow next to one another, because if you don't your position isn't even strong enough to demand the objections I offer here. You are conceding that interpretation is cool and your word, your interpretation of God's word is cool, therefore you have to concede that any other interpretation is cool too (unless of course you have some sort of direct access to god that I don't have...which you don't and can't).
All in all, Divine Command is a tough position to hold. To commit to it in a remotely consistent way, you would need to be willing to follow each and every prohibition the bible makes (which of course you aren't) and even if you were, you still wouldn't have any reason to believe that your beliefs were better than the muslim's or jew's around the block.
Our consideration of Divine Command leads us to a slightly more sophisticated (emphasis on slightly) slightly more defensable (still emphasizing slightly) position in the western tradition that is often used to condemn homosexuality on moral grounds: Natural Law Theory. Sadly, Natural Law is not going to offer us any help with regards to determining whether or not homosexuality is wrong because(as we will see next time) it (articularly as it is used in the debate regarding the right and wrong of gayness) is ridiculously problematic as well.
Friday, March 16, 2007
sport is fun
it is the truth...
if you do not like the ncaa mens basketball tournament you are still pissed about being picked last in gym class, losing your girlfriend to a basketball player in 1oth grade, or getting beat up by someone wearing jordans.
this shit is just too damned good to be true.
if you do not like the ncaa mens basketball tournament you are still pissed about being picked last in gym class, losing your girlfriend to a basketball player in 1oth grade, or getting beat up by someone wearing jordans.
this shit is just too damned good to be true.
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