About warning labels on book like in the US

[Winston]

Good post molly bloom, and I mostly agree. With the overall message of it at least.

But the point about people being deserving of ridicule if they take the scripture literally, I wouldn't go that far. In the cases where they keep it as their personal interpretation and don't try to impose it on others (and I think those cases far outnumber instances of the opposite), I say it's their own business, they shouldn't deserve ridicule for that. I would find such interpretation ridiculous, but that's my personal business, I wouldn't want them to interfere with that, so I think it goes both ways.

Also please note I didn't put a full stop after the sentence you quoted. Small point, but it does make a difference.

Use of the term "PC crowd" is not an attempt at stereotyping, more of a reference to the prevailing line of thought as I perceive it here from most media and from public debate. It's a very vague term to use actually.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Not today, no. They're fighting an uphill battle just to get their liberakism taught in school. Once they've won, they get to go on towards banning religion. The mistake moderates always make regarding lefties is they seem to think their aims are limited to their immediate struggles. Amongst themselves, they talk about establishing a dictatorship of the proletartiat. When we on the right attempt to point this out, we're accused of being alarmists and conspiracy theorists.

guevs view, modified somewhat.


Radical social groups always have extremists, who talk about something more radical. And you can always make a slippery slope argument, however stretched.

Which is not to say one shouldnt oppose the sticker movement. But one should not let that opposition lead one to undermine the tolerant principles that lay behind liberal society - there ARE situations where it is necessary to do so - when someone is picketing abortion clinics in such a way as to make them unuseable, when someone is using a church or mosque to organize acts of violence, when a political party advocates the violent overthrow of the state, perhaps -, but the temptation to undermine toleration to quickly is a recurrent problem.

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Vesayen
The overwhelming majority of Jews reconcile all science, including evolution, with religion.

Same is true of Christians.

[MikeH]

Nothing wrong with mocking the bible or any other holy book.

Freedom of speech is great.

[Winston]

Freedom of speech is a great thing. Even moreso if serious efforts were made to get it to sink in with people who kill at least 4 others over mere rumours of a Koran being placed on a lavatory in some far away country.

Then we could always debate the use of stickers on literature in our spare time.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
guevs view, modified somewhat.

Actually, we're quite open about our aims, lotm. We aren't hiding our goals, unlike the RR.

But continue to dream your little dreamy dream until you are either forced to flee to Israel or get caught up in the Republic of Gilead.


edit: spelling fix

[MikeH]

Originally posted by Winston
Freedom of speech is a great thing. Even moreso if serious efforts were made to get it to sink in with people who kill at least 4 others over mere rumours of a Koran being placed on a lavatory in some far away country.

Then we could always debate the use of stickers on literature in our spare time.

Huh? Those two things are totally seperate issues.

Free speech is good.

Terrorism is bad.

Being scared to say whatever you want 'cause of funamentalists in any religion/philosophy etc. is bad.

I think that sticker is funny, if anyone finds it offensive - tough. I'm sure there are things people think are funny that I don't - tough on me.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Actually, we're quite open about our aims, lotm. We aren't hiding our goals, unlike the RR.

well no, you communists dont hide your goals. Similarly, the handful of loonies who bomb abortion clinics dont hide their goals either. But all the social democrats, trade unionists, etc who claim not to be communists and to just want social reform are the ones who are dangerous, just as its the fundies who say they only want to get back to social policy and constitional jurisprudence circa 1955 who are the dangerous ones. They dont really want to go back to the 1950s, when there was prayer in the schools and homosexuality was a disease, they want to go to the Republic of Gilead.


[Sarcasm mode off]

But continue to dream your little dreamy cream until you are either forced to flee to Israel or get caught up in the Republic of Gilead.

dreamy cream???????


Im trying to defend this liberal state, both from the paranoid fundies and from the paranoid reaction to them. Not that moving to Israel would be such a disaster. I can see where for someone like you the fundies are godsend (pardon the expression), the more extreme the better. Something to stir things up when liberal free market consensus was freezing you out of history, and all that was left was to determine the exact bounds of the welfare state.

Ah for Clintonism again.


Hillary will save all.

[Spiffor]

LOTM:
Tolerance is one of the two pillars of the Anglo-Saxon core value of democratic restraint, essential to the American democracy. But it is often not well understood.

Democratic restraint is the value that says that the State shouldn't be able to pressure or coerce however it wants (in the US, it goes to the point that "small government" is seen as highly positive, and there is often a fear of the government that would look puzzling to a European, especially a Frenchman). It is also the calue that says that society shouldn't be able to coerce or pressure however it wants. John Stuart Mill talks quite a bit about making sure that societal groups shouldn't be let alone when they are very strong and try to bully other groups.

So, "tolerance" isn't simply about giving freedom of speech, of worship etc. to the people, it's also about preventing the people to stomp on other people's rights.

In today's US, the Christian fundies are one of the strongest, if not THE strongest social group. Without even saying that they want a theocracy, we can affirm that they want to stomp out the teaching of evolution, that they want to use schools to indoctrinate children to their beliefs, and they want to stomp out lifestyles in opposition to their beliefs (homosexuals). If they are left to their own devices, they'll create extremely intolerant societies, in which the "non-tolerated" people will suffer from the social pressure, no matter what the laws say. We have an example on 'Poly: Thorn is gay in southern Virginia, and he seriously suffers from living in an extremely closeminded community.

It's for the sake of tolerance that the fundies must be checkered. Just like it's for the sake of tolerance that any powerful social group that intends to stomp out the beliefs of others should be checkered.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor

It's for the sake of tolerance that the fundies must be checkered. Just like it's for the sake of tolerance that any powerful social group that intends to stomp out the beliefs of others should be checkered.

They should be opposed using democratic and liberal methods. Obviously not be violence. But also not by engaging in illiberal and McCarthyite rhetoric, like equating them to the Taliban.

You look from a distance and want them beaten. Period. I live here, to me it matters how they lose. Win or lose, they will still live here, as they have for hundreds of years. I want reconciliation with them. Which it seems to me is not consistent with demonization of them. Ive met members of fundamentalist churches, and theyre not all monsters who go around beating up on Gay people, though they may not share my views on gay rights (as I may not share yours or Guevs or Boris's views) To me as important as stopping stupid stickers, or pointless constitutional amendments, is getting away from the Kulturkampf, and reaching out to each other as Americans, based on what we have in common. To me that means that at the same time we advance the rights of gays, we acknowledge how threatening that is to some people - and we remind them gently that all we want is for some states, where they for the most part dont live, to have the right to choose to legalize gay unions - when we demonize them as Taliban or fascists for not sharing our views on gay marriage, we REINFORCE what the right tells them, that the lefts goal is to force gay marriage on every state in the union, as (from therir point of view) change after change has been forced on their states and communities for 50 years.


Similarly, what I see with jokes like this, is not an attempt to reconcile the fundies to modern science, but precisely the opposite - an attempt to tell them that the folks who believe in evolution hate the bible, and laugh at those who believe in it. This serves only those who delight in the kulturkampf.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
They should be opposed using democratic and liberal methods. Obviously not be violence. But also not by engaging in illiberal and McCarthyite rhetoric, like equating them to the Taliban.

I absolutely agree. Anti-fundy ideological vigilantism would create the very same problems as the fundies, because the fundies are acting as ideological vigilantes. And the fight against fundies' bullying, if not done properly, could result in bad restrictions of the freedom of speech.

You look from a distance and want them beaten. Period. I live here, to me it matters how they lose. Win or lose, they will still live here, as they have for hundreds of years. I want reconciliation with them. Which it seems to me is not consistent with demonization of them. Ive met members of fundamentalist churches, and theyre not all monsters who go around beating up on Gay people, though they may not share my views on gay rights (as I may not share yours or Guevs or Boris's views) To me as important as stopping stupid stickers, or pointless constitutional amendments, is getting away from the Kulturkampf, and reaching out to each other as Americans, based on what we have in common.

I can understand your feeling. It's very important to have them beaten properly, and it's also important that they don't become alienated from the mainstream society. Again, I think the sticker we're discussing in this thread is provocative and doesn't solve the problem.
But I wanted to add that letting them free to bully however they want (I know it's not what you advocate, but I think you are more lenient than me on the matter) wouldn't correspond to tolerance. At least not to the tolerance that made the US into the democracy it is now.

[lord of the mark]

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. "

Barack Obama.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Spiffor

and it's also important that they don't become alienated from the mainstream society.

they already are. Thats why theyre so paranoid.

[Odin]

Obama:

[chequita guevara]

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