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Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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DWill

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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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Robert Tulip wrote:Sorry to dwell on this Kavanaugh case, but I find it fascinating as an example of culture war. There should be no question that the recent recognition of the human rights of victims of sexual assault is an overdue corrective to a previous culture of impunity. I have myself made numerous comments about the pathology of abuse in churches, and what a depraved culture this pattern of conduct indicates. But such correctives do have a tendency to swing the pendulum too far in some cases. Some studies have found a high proportion of rape claims to be false, as detailed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape The assumption that a victim will be automatically believed brings a severe moral hazard. This obviously traumatises victims when their honest accounts are disbelieved, and yet avoiding punishment of the innocent and preventing vexatious accusations are important public goods.
What the MeToo movement represents seems so clearly an example of evolving civil rights that I wouldn't even use the term 'culture wars' to describe it. I would also hope this is an issue with broad bipartisan support, and I think in general it is. What complicates matters is--no surprise--sex. I agree that belief of claims of abuse should't be held to be automatic. There have been instances where false claims of child sexual abuse have damaged innocent people. So we need to be careful.
The context here is that a short delay could remove Trump’s nomination power, with massive effect on American public policy. I don’t get the impression people think Ford should not be taken seriously, just that she should not be made an excuse for Democrats to game the system. This incident is very minor on the scale of crime even if proven, which it can’t be while Mark Judge sides with Kavanaugh. I see she will testify this week, although her camp is trying to stall the process.
As you're aware, the Republicans delayed a hearing on a new SC justice for a year so that they could get the justice they wanted. They should shut up about a minor delay to thoroughly investigate the charges. If it's true that we don't have a full picture of what happened that night 35 years ago, we can't say this was a minor crime. As alleged, the offense is serious and if reported would have resulted in judgment and punishment against Kavanaugh. He may have been enveloped in a culture of beer and macho swagger, and he may have done this just once, but that has never served as an excuse for illegal behavior.
No doubt Ford was traumatised, but the possibility of misperception on her part is a legitimate question.
The details need to be investigated, but the possibility that Dr. Ford is making this up from whole cloth is extremely small. It's still true, though, that if Kavanaugh is falsely saying that nothing happened, he is not fit to be a justice. If he might have been so drunk that he didn't recall what had happened, then he should pay the delayed consequence of the behavior. That's the way life works sometimes.
What looks most probable in this case, assuming the incident occurred as described which is still unproven, is that Kavanaugh fully believed that Ford was consenting and let her go as soon as she made clear she did not consent. It is perfectly understandable that her perception was different. Perpetrators with a pattern of such conduct are very different from someone who experiments once as a youth and immediately learns about appropriate boundaries.
But why does the more innocent interpretation seem probable? Because he was a good boy and student from a good family? Unfortunately that doesn't inoculate anyone from behaving like this. Having another guy present also makes a consenting situation seem unlikely.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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Robert Tulip wrote:Sorry to dwell on this Kavanaugh case, but I find it fascinating as an example of culture war. There should be no question that the recent recognition of the human rights of victims of sexual assault is an overdue corrective to a previous culture of impunity.
I have been guilty of that myself, for accepting the discounting of Bill Clinton's victims. I think all of us have learned something about the prevalence of this sort of behavior. In a sense that's the main message of #MeToo - the culture of discounting and victim-shaming led to a pattern of women suffering in silence. I kind of think the Republicans would yank the nomination and go with somebody cleaner if not for the concern about running out of time.
Robert Tulip wrote:I have myself made numerous comments about the pathology of abuse in churches, and what a depraved culture this pattern of conduct indicates.
Not only the church coverups, but the widespread shaming into silence of victims, too. There is something deeply disturbed in a culture where the victims do not simply come forward, in confidence that their allegations will be taken seriously.
Robert Tulip wrote:But such correctives do have a tendency to swing the pendulum too far in some cases. Some studies have found a high proportion of rape claims to be false, as detailed at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape
There is not much indication of swinging too far yet. There were attempts to smear a "perpetrator" like the well-known Aziz Ansari case, where the man was insensitive and aggressive, but had signs of genuine consent and only "lacked affirmative consent." But this was not a lie, it was only an effort to claim victimhood from an ambiguous case.

From the Wiki piece, we are apparently talking about fewer than 5 percent of cases in which allegations did not hold up to investigation. I am willing to believe that 1 in 20 rape allegations comes from an effort to cause trouble for a man the woman is mad at (probably with good reason in most cases.) Some of those are probably mental illness of a mild sort. On the other hand, inability to track a perp down, plus the intimidating reception by the system and the fear of repeat violence by the offender, means that more than 2/3 of rapes go unreported in the U.S. We are a long way from overcorrecting.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/crimin ... ice-system
Robert Tulip wrote:The assumption that a victim will be automatically believed brings a severe moral hazard. This obviously traumatises victims when their honest accounts are disbelieved, and yet avoiding punishment of the innocent and preventing vexatious accusations are important public goods.
Yes, we generally avoid conviction of the innocent, unless they are ethnic minorities and the prosecutor needs to get the conviction rate up. But we are not talking about convicting Brett Kavanaugh. In fact, just the opposite, we are talking about rushing his nomination through without a proper hearing, precisely because the politics are not favorable to actually looking into the facts. The Republican Senators who go along with this should be deeply ashamed. But the chances of that are about like the chances that Georgetown Prep frat-boys will make a clean breast of their behavior under the influence of alcohol.
Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:"guilt-proofing" the powerful.
That is absolutely not the case. Weinstein has hardly been ‘guilt-proofed’ and nor should anyone with a clear history of assault. But the Kavanaugh case is far from clear, as an isolated incident where false perceptions are possible, backed by a Democrat horde baying for blood against Trump.
Weinstein will probably be doing time in prison. Probably so should Bill Clinton, and so should Teddy Kennedy have. If Kavanaugh were merely running for office, I would say the fact that it was an isolated incident should allow it to be left up to the voters. But a Supreme Court seat is a lifetime appointment, and it is the final arbiter of application of the law in our country.
Robert Tulip wrote:The context here is that a short delay could remove Trump’s nomination power, with massive effect on American public policy.
Yes, we Democrats are painfully conscious of the effect of a "short" delay on a Supreme Court nomination. You do realize that if the Senate changes parties and Professor Ford says, "Tee hee, I lied just to get y'all to delay," she could go to jail. That's the concern you are alluding to, that the door would be opened to false and malicious charges just to have a political influence. That was the accusation against Anita Hill, and Joe Biden shamefully joined in the railroading to avoid a proper hearing, suppressing evidence that would likely have changed the outcome of the vote. Who exactly was deceitful and malicious? Who has a track record now of suppressing careful inquiry when such events have occurred? This pious concern for "encouraging false accusations" is entirely too convenient.
Robert Tulip wrote:I don’t get the impression people think Ford should not be taken seriously, just that she should not be made an excuse for Democrats to game the system. This incident is very minor on the scale of crime even if proven, which it can’t be while Mark Judge sides with Kavanaugh. I see she will testify this week, although her camp is trying to stall the process.
And the perjury about it? The affair Bill Clinton was impeached for was fairly minor - his sexual harassment of Monica Lewinsky was unacceptable, but still not violent - but he lied about it. And it turns out the allegations of more serious conduct were probably true, so the pattern of his behavior should have been listened to much earlier. Why should we waltz down the same path to perdition because it is inconvenient for the Republican hopes of overturning Roe v Wade?
Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote: The supposedly horrible prospect of a brazen liar manufacturing a lifetime of pretend trauma so that she could take down a possible public servant is not really all that credible. But it plays well to political partisans.
No doubt Ford was traumatised, but the possibility of misperception on her part is a legitimate question.
Then it should get a legitimate hearing, and Mark Judge, who has confessed to addiction and rampant drunkenness, should be forced to look Dr. Ford in the eye, as well as the Senate Committee, and talk about what the culture was like and why we should believe that she is making it up.
Robert Tulip wrote:What looks most probable in this case, assuming the incident occurred as described which is still unproven, is that Kavanaugh fully believed that Ford was consenting and let her go as soon as she made clear she did not consent. It is perfectly understandable that her perception was different.
Because we know that drunken high school boys are oh, so careful about consent, and would never put their hand over a girl's mouth because they would never think of taking her clothes off without her consent. And of course since it was all just a misunderstanding, that's why he went to her the next week and apologized, and swore up and down that he would never do something so disrespectful again, and, now fully sober, asked for her forgiveness.

Give me a break.
Robert Tulip wrote:Perpetrators with a pattern of such conduct are very different from someone who experiments once as a youth and immediately learns about appropriate boundaries.
Oh, he knows all about appropriate boundaries. If you can get away with it, it is in bounds. The Clarence Thomas hearings showed it, the political call on Clinton's lying showed it, the 2016 election showed it. My question is what will it take for the country to stop confirming the corruption.
Robert Tulip wrote:It is about weighing the evidence and forming an opinion.
No, it's really not. It's about a rush to politically expedient judgment.
Robert Tulip wrote: It is wrong to say that if you don’t like the decision you have been ignored.
Well, that depends very much on how the decision is reached. Party line vote? Looks very much like nobody cares diddly squat for the evidence.
Robert Tulip wrote:
Harry Marks wrote:this incident still puts him squarely on the side of privilege
and that is why Democrats hate him, as he is a primary target for the war on inequality, with this Ford case just the most convenient delaying tactic.
I don't deny either that it is convenient or that I detest his "jurisprudence." The Supreme Court already has at least four zombies, as evidenced by the AFSCME decision, and the country does not need another. It's disgusting that the whole issue of timing and the fairness of the investigation is being reduced to their feeling that without another zombie, the Court might engage in thought. But to the contrary I would argue that Feinstein's sometimes clumsy handling of the case has been all about respecting Ford's truth and her right to bring it forward or not as she saw fit. At least Dianne Feinstein showed some actual human consideration in the case.
Robert Tulip wrote:Realism in politics is not a sin, when it means a capacity to weigh the moral worth of rival factors and likely reactions. To be ‘judged publicly’ in such a case is the equivalent of being lynched.
The "realism" of preferring the politically convenient to the truth is indeed a sin. Public hearing really isn't the equivalent of being lynched, no matter what Clarence Thomas alleged. He complained that he would never get his good name back, but had spent 15 years behind the scenes besmirching it. What he was really complaining about was his behavior being made public - the same thing the Catholic Church suppressed. Let's give the facts a fair hearing, as we did not in Thomas' case, as the RCC would not allow in decades of their mishandling of child abuse.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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DWill wrote:I agree that belief of claims of abuse should't be held to be automatic. There have been instances where false claims of child sexual abuse have damaged innocent people. So we need to be careful.
I agree with the two of you about that. But both types of error need to be considered, and if there is a credible accusation, it should be looked at carefully, not expediently and expeditiously.
DWill wrote:As you're aware, the Republicans delayed a hearing on a new SC justice for a year so that they could get the justice they wanted.
One might conclude that the Republican party had abandoned all interest in confirming based on qualifications, but it was only the leadership who smothered the nomination of Merrick Garland. They rightly believed that a number of Republican Senators would have voted based on qualifications and approved Garland. If Murkowski and Collins want a place in history as profiles in courage, they will vote down the nomination as a protest against the current railroading of a credible allegation and against the way they were railroaded in 2016. I believe Jeff Flake would join them.
DWill wrote:
No doubt Ford was traumatised, but the possibility of misperception on her part is a legitimate question.
The details need to be investigated, but the possibility that Dr. Ford is making this up from whole cloth is extremely small. It's still true, though, that if Kavanaugh is falsely saying that nothing happened, he is not fit to be a justice. If he might have been so drunk that he didn't recall what had happened, then he should pay the delayed consequence of the behavior. That's the way life works sometimes.
Sometimes people that drunk get behind the wheel and kill people. What does it say to the public if people of color can be shot with impunity because a police officer was nervous (or feeling sadistic) but Yale Law Graduates are not going to have serious allegations against them examined carefully? Unfortunately that's also the way life works sometimes.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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I had to return to the "Is Trump smart" question that interbane answered simply in the negative. To prove he's right, you just need to dip into the record of Trump's accumulated statements, just randomly point to something, like flipping through a book. Here's Trump comparing his crowd size to Elton John's: " I have broken a lot of Elton John records, and he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don't have a musical instrument. Really, we do it without, like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical instrument: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important. "
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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I don't see how anyone can listed to the man and not know, viscerally, that's he's a dumb person within a few minutes.

He is not only stupid, but his emotional IQ is bottom of the barrel as well.

Donald Trump(not in chronological order):

''People love me. And you know what? I've been very successful. Everybody loves me.''

''My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.''

''I think the only difference between me and other candidates is that I'm more honest and my women are more beautiful.''

''Sorry losers and haters, but my I.Q. is one of the highest – and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.''

''I’m intelligent. Some people would say I’m very, very, very intelligent.”

“I’m the least racist person you have ever interviewed.”

"To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Maybe because I'm so good looking."

''I had some beautiful pictures taken in which I had a big smile on my face. I looked happy, I looked content, I looked like a very nice person, which in theory I am.''

'The beauty of me is that I’m very rich.''

“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”


And the quote that proves how low his EQ truly is, after considering the quotes above:

''I think I am actually humble. I think I’m much more humble than you would understand.''
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.” - Douglas Adams
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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Reply to comments from post166579.html#p166579
DWill wrote:The culture war aspect comes in mostly from the evangelicals, I think, and then only on a couple of issues, certainly not on some family values basis.
I find that a very surprising comment. Evangelical Christians see the nuclear family as the bedrock of society and culture, and see this value system undermined by the modern secular world.
DWill wrote: The disaffected voters would have been less pleased with the others, but with the alternative being Clinton...they would have settled. A moderate Republican would have been able to draw votes from people who didn't like Clinton but couldn't see a guy like Trump in the WH.
Many right wing voters could well have seen a moderate Republican candidate as not different enough from Clinton to bother voting. Trump created a mass movement with his rallies and sense of excitement.
DWill wrote: Another Republican would also have benefited from the wind at Trump's back. The wind was produced by the typical urge for change after eight years of one party's rule and the worldwide nativist/nationalist phenomenon. Even though Bush, Rubio, and most of the rest were not strongly nativist or nationalistic, they were more so than the Democrats, and they probably would have moved more rightward after being nominated.
I am only relying on reading information from a long way away (Australia), but this election challenged the theory of centrist convergence, illustrating that polarising alternative candidates generate more attention and interest, even if their policies seem worse in technical terms than centrists.
DWill wrote:
Similarly with homosexuality, there is an unstated subtext in gay marriage advocacy that bringing children into the world is immoral so barren relationships are morally superior to traditional families.
Is there really such a subtext? What I see more often is advocacy for gay couples to be able to adopt, which would seem not to indicate a judgment against childbearing.
My view is that the Ehrlich view of humanity as a plague upon the planet has seeped deeply into progressive mythology. So while no one will say they are against motherhood or apple pie, the reality is that the modern secular religion views big families as sinful.

The unstated implication of that cultural attitude is that a childless lifestyle, not bringing new children into the world, reduces the overall footprint of humanity and is therefore virtuous. That is more about a psychoanalytic speculation on unconscious motivation than an explicit argument, since anyone saying such things meets strong emotional hostility. The further problem is that this anti-natal attitude is more common among the educated, so the selective pressure involves a steady evolutionary dumbing-down of humanity as the poor and stupid outbreed the rich and smart, who have a convenient rationalisation for their hedonistic desire not to sacrifice their personal pleasures for the sake of child-raising.
DWill wrote:
Yes, it is about the feeling that traditional American culture with roots in local community has been displaced by a globalised cosmopolitan elite. That is much the same culture clash that gave rise to Hitler.
So do we have only Trump's low popularity numbers to thank for such a development still appearing distant?
On my zodiac age theory of history, comparing events separated by the natural orbital period of 2148 years, the USA is now at the point that Rome reached in 130 BC in its slide from republic to empire.

De facto world empire had been established by Rome about fifteen years earlier in 146 BC with the destruction of Carthage and Corinth, and presaged earlier with the defeat of Hannibal in 202 BC, like the American defeat of Hitler. The moral sense of Republican virtue meant Romans would not willingly accept military government for another century, after a series of social and civil wars allowed Augustus to emerge as emperor.

Trump is a tester for the prospect of military dictatorship in the USA. I don’t think such a prospect will happen unless the economy collapses under the weight of climate change, which is probably decades away, and could be avoided altogether. The emergence of scientific frameworks for public policy might forestall that risk, but only if grounded in a better approach to social reconciliation.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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Dictatorship may already be upon us:

EMERGENCY REPORT: Signed Executive Orders reveal Trump is planning mass arrests, military tribunals for deep state traitors like Comey, Clinton and Obama
naturalnews.com/2018-09-23-emergency-re ... bama.html#

This ties into the Kavanaugh court confirmation. From the article:

The confirmation of Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court is the key to getting this done in a timely manner, which explains why the deranged Left is going to such outrageous extremes to fabricate false allegations against Kavanaugh and stage coordinated, well-funded protests to try to block the U.S. Senate from confirming him.

Once Kavanaugh is on the court, it will add the necessary support for constitutional “emergency powers” that concentrate power in the executive branch of government (currently headed by President Trump) during times of war and national emergencies.


The Kavanaugh hearings have drawn an inordinate amount of attention from the "resisters." The media says the fuss is about abortion, but it's more than that. According to the author of the article, once there is a solid rule-of-law majority on the Supreme Court, Trump will begin arresting America's enemies. This goes back to the first post in this thread, where I quoted from Trump's Executive Order regarding seizure of assets and so on. Part of that order authorizes the seizure of property/assets from:

(B) ...a current or former government official, or a person acting for or on behalf of such an official, who is responsible for or complicit in, or has directly or indirectly engaged in:

(1) corruption, including the misappropriation of state assets, the expropriation of private assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, or bribery; or

(2) the transfer or the facilitation of the transfer of the proceeds of corruption;


This describes the Clintons, Obamas, Bushes and many others to a T. Mention of the "extraction of national resources" could be a direct reference to Hillary Clinton's involvement in the Uranium One deal, where as Secretary of State she helped Russia acquire 20% of America's uranium ore.

I have mixed feelings about Trump subjecting traitors to tribunal justice. He only has the powers because Hillary Clinton was supposed to assume the presidency. Obama's orders made it possible for the next president to declare martial law and clean out the rats nest in Washington, but that president was supposed to be Clinton. Toward the end of her campaign she mentioned the "dark heart" of Alex Jones, and if she'd won then the media's lead story right now would be Jones' show trial. But Clinton lost, so all they can do to Jones is try to destroy his influence. Also, if Clinton had won, she would have appointed coke-snortin' Marxist Obama to the Supreme Court, and no telling who else. We dodged a big, deadly bullet in that election.

At any rate, thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, spies and so on may soon be arrested and tried for treason. We shall see.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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This Mike Adams who runs Natural News is a real specimen that I encourage others to check out--or on second thought maybe it's a waste of time. I see coke head has been added to Obama's resume. What's behind the hate display for Obama I don't even want to think about.
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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The Truth about conservatives comes out when they advocate martial law, mass arrests, military tribunals, seizing control of mass media, disbanding the FBI, and suspending elections - a few of the things they accuse opponents of doing plus much more. Yes these conservatives are true freedom loving patriots! :P Actually no, just another a bunch of hysterical power-grubbing fascists. :no:
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Re: Draining the swamp - Thank you Donald Trump

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Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote: The culture war aspect comes in mostly from the evangelicals, I think, and then only on a couple of issues, certainly not on some family values basis.
I find that a very surprising comment. Evangelical Christians see the nuclear family as the bedrock of society and culture, and see this value system undermined by the modern secular world.
This culture war is about whether other definitions of the family should be allowed to exist. It's not really that evangelicals think they won't be able to have their nuclear family experience if progressives work their agenda. If some of them think that is indeed a legitimate fear, they're exaggerating. Culture war is specifically about wanting the society to be the same as your own group. It's not enough for warriors on either side to have their own culture within a larger one. Evangelicals want everyone's nuclear family to consist of a married different-sex couple and their offspring. They feel under attack by "secular" society on other fronts as well, which is a fear partly created by their leadership. The point regarding the family is that evangelicals don't have a monopoly on decent family values. There are aspects of healthy families that they overlook or denigrate, such as the viability of same-sex unions, the availability of healthcare, and systemic problems of poverty. A real nuclear family issue, like families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border, is likely to get little attention from them.
Many right wing voters could well have seen a moderate Republican candidate as not different enough from Clinton to bother voting. Trump created a mass movement with his rallies and sense of excitement.
Maybe, but it's likely the nominee would have moved to the right, and possible that dislike of HRC would have still been enough to make voters lukewarm about the GOP candidate to vote against her.
Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote: Another Republican would also have benefited from the wind at Trump's back. The wind was produced by the typical urge for change after eight years of one party's rule and the worldwide nativist/nationalist phenomenon. Even though Bush, Rubio, and most of the rest were not strongly nativist or nationalistic, they were more so than the Democrats, and they probably would have moved more rightward after being nominated.
I am only relying on reading information from a long way away (Australia), but this election challenged the theory of centrist convergence, illustrating that polarising alternative candidates generate more attention and interest, even if their policies seem worse in technical terms than centrists.
We'll have to see whether centrism is really out the door or just not sexy enough for now. Part of Trump's success appeared to come from him and his lieutenants convincing folks that Clinton wasn't centrist but rather a dangerous radical, or, of course, criminal.
Robert Tulip wrote:
DWill wrote: Is there really such a subtext? What I see more often is advocacy for gay couples to be able to adopt, which would seem not to indicate a judgment against childbearing.
My view is that the Ehrlich view of humanity as a plague upon the planet has seeped deeply into progressive mythology. So while no one will say they are against motherhood or apple pie, the reality is that the modern secular religion views big families as sinful.
I think we need to recuse ourselves from the plague-upon-the-planet judgment. Our defense of our species will be infected by bias and self-interest.
The unstated implication of that cultural attitude is that a childless lifestyle, not bringing new children into the world, reduces the overall footprint of humanity and is therefore virtuous. That is more about a psychoanalytic speculation on unconscious motivation than an explicit argument, since anyone saying such things meets strong emotional hostility. The further problem is that this anti-natal attitude is more common among the educated, so the selective pressure involves a steady evolutionary dumbing-down of humanity as the poor and stupid outbreed the rich and smart, who have a convenient rationalisation for their hedonistic desire not to sacrifice their personal pleasures for the sake of child-raising.
But it's a tortuous path of causality from pro-gay attitudes to anti-birthism. I believe that the desire for children is strong enough that few couples let population concerns prevent them from having children. They may have only one or two, possibly influenced by overpopulation worries, but they have other reasons as well for keeping the family small. And that's a good thing the way I look at it. It's also a good thing for people to feel comfortable remaining childless. It means they haven't succumbed to social pressure to procreate. Perhaps such pressure is lessening.
Last edited by DWill on Thu Sep 27, 2018 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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