Tell the Truth

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

And shame the devil used to be a well known proverb.

Now… ah, now things have changed. Now we’re treated to the spectacle of Tanya Cohen a “human rights” activist telling us that “hate speech” is against human rights, and that, therefore we should stop people from speaking freely.

In sentences that should make you fall on your knees – if you are an American citizen/resident – and pray to the divinity of your choice in joy and gratitude that you live in the – still, despite all – land of the free, she excoriates the United States for being the only one of the Western civ countries to have no laws against hate speech.

Mike Walsh raged at her, so I don’t have to. You should totally read his article.

I did not follow his link to her full rant, because, heaven help me, I don’t need to become the first verified case of spontaneous human combustion.

But one of the things he quoted from her, stuck in my craw, like something indigestible and possibly poisonous.

First up, yes, I do strongly believe in freedom of speech, and I’ve worked with many human rights organizations to protest against genuine restrictions on freedom of speech and expression, such as government crackdowns on LGBT activists in Russia. Freedom of speech is the core of all democratic societies, and it’s a freedom that must be upheld in the strongest terms possible. But the people responding to my column with anger do not seem to understand what freedom of speech is. They seem to make no distinction between free speech and hate speech, and they seem to believe that freedom of speech includes the freedom to say anything.

Does she read what she writes? Is there in fact in this woman the vaguest scintilla of self-awareness or the ability to reflect on the random thoughts that, like scintillating and meaningless flickers of consciousness cross her brain? Or is she just some sort of parrot repeating meaningless phrases that she lacks the capacity to realize are meaningless?

How could she possibly have come to the conclusion that there can be freedom of speech but it doesn’t mean “saying anything they want?”

What does she define as hate speech? How can she define hate speech? Is a Muslim speaking about how women should be subjected to male rule in everything committing hate speech? Or is the activist who denounces such a Muslim (should such “activist” exist, of course, which in the west, by and large doesn’t. Well, Ayaan Hirsi Ali is now in the west and she is such an activist, beautiful and brave, but almost alone.)

Who is to parse through the forest of hate speech? Who is to decide which of the wounding words are hate speech? Who is to come from heaven and give us the ultimate judgement?

Later on another quote gives us the clue to the puzzle.

I do believe that, one day, the US will indeed pass a Human Rights Act and/or a new anti-discrimination law to outlaw hate speech and other forms of speech which violate basic human rights. Those of us on the right side of history, meanwhile, will be writing columns like mine, while racist bigots continue to write angry comments speaking out against human rights.

And I do believe she’s full of Shiite, and also that that phrase “human rights” doesn’t mean what she thinks it means, since she thinks it means humans have a right not to be offended. But never mind that – or rather do – let’s concentrate instead on the absolute stupidity of “the right side of history.”

Can someone please tell this overgrown child that history is merely the recorded progression of human events, and that it has no sides, right or wrong. Oh, sure, the victor writes his side as right, but other than that, there is nothing that – as she believes – compels humans history towards the ‘progressive’ narrative she loves. Yeah, yeah, that old Fraud, that ridiculous ink stained blob of hate and bile Karl Marx thought that history came with an arrow. He also thought Communism was scientific, something he divined by the method of pulling it from his posterior since he was no kind of scientist.

Those “Human Rights” to honor and dignity and what have you that she’s so devoted to were a Soviet ploy foisted on the UN to give them the ability to criticize truly free countries on specious grounds.

Specious, you say?

Surely unlike little Tanya, you can think. What is honor? What is dignity? Define those concepts in absolute enough terms that they can be used in law.

Heck, we have years of argument on things such as “what is libel” and keep coming up dry to the point that different countries have different definitions of it.

Using the idea that if you offend anyone, you’ve committed a hate crime, you can silence anyone, stop any troublesome questioner, turn “justice” upside down and define it as “social justice” which is in fact injustice in which people can be held liable for the alleged crimes of people who look vaguely like them and who died well before they were born.

Again, what is a hate crime? Killing people, or pointing out that the killers’ twisted and atavistic culture advocates subjugation of all who thing differently? Mutilating young girls and forcing them to marry much older men against their will, or pointing out that certain cultures mutilate young girls and force them to marry much older men against their will? Raging and demanding a share of other people’s hard earned wealth? Or pointing out that the underclass brings itself to straits through lack of certain cultural virtues?

There isn’t an answer to this, because there is no such thing as “hate speech.” There is hateful speech, and some of it is despicable. Say, when people tell two women who are defending freedom of expression that they’re the worst person in the world.

Note though that even that didn’t hurt the two reprobates… er… women except by making them wonder how they can both be the world’s worst person.

However sometimes the speech that seems despicable turns out to have been necessary. And the speech that everyone thought was correct and right and on the right side of history (say, the whole racial superiority and Arian wonderfulness thing so popular less than a century ago) turns out to be crazier than worm sh*t and to lead to a whole lot of senseless death and destruction.

That Tanya never even contemplates that the ability to define “hate speech” is going to be in the hands of the ruling class, and that any restrictions at all on speech mean there’s a good chance those silenced will be people standing athwart metaphoric trains headed to ovens yelling “stop” means she doesn’t think in any significant sense of the word.

Like a well trained parrot she repeats what she’s been taught.

And it is because of her, and her imitators in our own field, those who define justice as injustice and gagging as freedom of speech that you and I have to continue screaming.

Screaming as loudly and offensively as we can that the king is naked.

No one has the right not to be offended. Sometimes the thing that hurts the most is the thing you most need to hear.

And sometimes the thing that hurts the most is just a hurtful thing – and you need to speak back and refute it.

What you don’t need to do is murder cartoonists. H*ll you don’t even need to murder Tanya Cohen. You just need to point and laugh at her until she slinks back under the totalitarian rock she crawled out from, and maybe uses her time in the moist darkness to do some thinking on her crimes against reason and her enabling of totalitarians.

Perhaps she’ll even realize that any speech that has constraints isn’t free.  Then she’ll stop being the sweat rag of totalitarian wanna-bes.

She — and us — will be the better for it.

 

 

394 thoughts on “Tell the Truth”

  1. People like that deserve being imprisoned for “Hate Speech”. [Frown]

  2. I am reminded very much of the Ape in C. S. Lewis’ “The Last Battle”:
    “You think true freedom is doing what you want? Well, you’re wrong. I’ll tell you what true freedom is. True freedom is doing what I tell you.” (Paraphraised since it’s been a very long time.)

    That spirit is alive and well it would seem.

      1. She’s actually more like the dwarves at the end, sitting in sunshine but blind to the reality around them–and always thinking that their fellows have something better than the filth they think they have.

          1. Then Rousseau must have been scramble-stealing from Aquinas, who said that true freedom was freely willing the same thing that God willed.

            Somehow, I always knew that Rousseau thought he was God. (And obviously, the Ape also thought he could be God.)

  3. The problem of course is that little Miss Tanya feeeeeels she and she alone is sufficiently qualified to do the complex moral equation that distinguishes “free” speech from “hate” speech.

    That this feeeeeling is the very wellspring of tyranny seems to have escaped her. A flaw in her education no doubt.

      1. Of course not. Everything -she- says will be eminently reasonable and correct, by definition. She does the defining, we do the shutting up. And presently the rotting in jail, the starving, and the dying. Because Tanya is RIGHT you see, and all the rest of us are WRONG.

        That’s what makes it the wellspring of tyranny. A notion entirely lost on Little Miss Tanya, I fear.

      2. I suppose it depends on which country she’s in. I don’t think it’s dawned on her that speaking up for LGBT rights is considered hate speech in many places. Maybe even in Russia soon. That’s going to cause some cognitive dissonance.

        1. Ah, but that makes her a Bold Defender of Justice (TM), along with everyone who agrees with her. Only those who disagree are guilty of hate speech.

  4. This woman is merely another example of how Leftism requires you to lie to yourself and everyone around you. Can’t live with these people.

  5. “That Tanya never even contemplates that the ability to define “hate speech” is going to be in the hands of the ruling class, and that any restrictions at all on speech mean there’s a good chance those silenced will be people standing athwart metaphoric trains headed to ovens yelling “stop” means she doesn’t think in any significant sense of the word.”

    Possibly she “thinks” she’ll be part of that ruling class.

    1. That assumes she’s given it any thought at all.

      The scary thing is that Tanya believes free speech is only that which she finds acceptable, nor that she is alone. It’s more than a cynical “It’s free if I say it, not when you do;” it’s an absolutely belief that speech she considers “hate” is not free. That, and she cannot see the flaw in her reasoning.

    2. No, she just thinks that the ruling class will agree with her definitions, and that they will never change, because she thinks that her notions are an immutable law of nature.

        2. The seeming difference between the outlook of the current Pope and the previous two is very, very troubling. It’s unfortunate that Benedict felt a need to step down early.

            1. Benedict had been going blind and deaf for years the same way his brother went years before, he’d sprained/broken bones in falls, he was exhausted, he’d been talking about re-establishing the papal right to abdicate since about 1995, and he’d been trying to retire since about 1985.

              That said, I think all the skulduggery going on behind his back was what convinced him he couldn’t govern without literally having eyes and ears to keep watch.

        3. Given how often they’ve twisted– and flat made up– stuff that “Francis said,” I’ll wait until there’s some kind of decent source, not Yahoo!

          I mean, really, the guy says enough objectionable stuff without any help. “Merry Christmas, you den of vipers!”, dude, really? (Well, paraphrased.)

          *digs around to see if anything from sources that understand “context” and “research” have anything yet*

          K, it’s a misrepresentation, or maybe a mis-translation/lack of detail/culture issue:
          http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pope-on-charlie-hebdo-dont-kill-in-gods-name-but-dont-insult-faith/
          (long quote)
          “But you cannot kill in the name of God. This is an aberration. Killing in the name of God is an aberration against God. I think this is the main thing, with freedom of religion. You can practice with freedom, but without imposing or killing.”
          He said that every person has not just the freedom or right, but also an obligation, “to say what he thinks” to build the common good. “We have the obligation to freely have this liberty, but without offending.”
          Yesterday, at Mass in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Pope Francis categorized the freedom of religion as a fundamental human right. During the airborne press conference, he called both freedom of religion and expression “fundamental human rights,” but said there are limits to the freedoms.
          “You cannot offend or make war, kill in the name of your religion, that is, in the name of God,” the Pope told journalists.
          But if the freedom of expression is used to offend, he said, one can expect a reaction.

          Reading it with an eye to theology, he’s saying you don’t have a right to do wrong. Ability, yes, but “right” has different connotations… I think the best translation into common language would be something like “the way things ought to be”?
          You and I both know that the truth, and building the common good, is going to be highly offensive to a lot of people. I really hope someone who speaks whatever language the original statement was in gets ahold of word-for-word and translates some detail, since I know “offend” can have different connotations. (In some versions, facts cannot be offensive.)

          The comment about “every religion that respects human life and the human person” has my eyebrows going up. Probably most folks here, too, since I know we’ve talked about very popular but notably lacking in that area interpretations of Islam. (adjusts diplomat hat)

          1. The context for his remarks is the Sri Lankan war that has been running for at least forty years between the government and the Tamil Tigers (a weird Communist group claiming to fight on ethnic and religious grounds). There’s also some actual bad feeling and destructiveness among various ethnic and religious groups, and Catholics are way in the minority. (I think the other religions are Buddhist, animist/Hindu, and some Protestant and Muslim folks.)

            1. They beat the Tamils a couple of years ago. The current conflict is Buddhist vs Muslim. Similar actions ongoing in Burma and Thailand.

          2. Reading it with an eye to theology, he’s saying you don’t have a right to do wrong.

            Oddly, that’s the Progressive position as well.

            1. Which is why the observation that Progressives have their politics as their religion is so insightful.

              They take “statements about what it would be in a perfect world” and try to copy-paste them into realty.

              From each by his ability, too each by his need– it’s a good statement of “should be.” Applying it to practical matters? Oh, dear mother.

              Politics is figuring out how to chase after “that which should be” when you do not have perfect knowledge.

              The Progressives “fix” the lack of perfect knowledge by declaring that whatever they think (right now) IS true.

        4. No, he doesn’t.

          What he seems to be advocating is that you don’t act an ass in public.

          Tanya is calling for *government intervention* to suppress speech that offends other people. The Pope is calling for people to treat each other with respect.

          Tanya wants the Government to kill you if you don’t shut up.

          The Pope is suggesting that if you offend someone enough *they* might kill you.

          Those are very, very different positions.

          I can oppose racism and bigotry without wanting the government to intervene.

  6. Speech is. It is neither hate nor good. It is the thing and the whole of the thing. Speech can be used for anything or nothing,such as what Tanya Cohen has written. It is a tool for the transfer of ideas, good or bad, naughty or nice, banal or uplifting, ideas. The banning of any speech is no less that the banning of the all speech. Even the trope about not being able to yell fire in a theater has a caveat, if the theater is on fire you better yell fire. And is some doofus is wanting to ban speech we all need to stand up and yell about that as well.

    Grey matter exhausted. Back to my hole now.

    1. Even the trope about not being able to yell fire in a theater has a caveat, if the theater is on fire you better yell fire.

      In fact, that is entirely wrong. It is illegal to yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre, especially if the theatre is on fire, because it incites people to panic and stampede for the exits. That is how people used to get killed in theatre fires. If nobody incited them to panic, they were generally able to make their way out in a sufficiently orderly fashion that the weaker ones did not get trampled.

        1. Having checked further into the matter, I discover that the relevant juridical decision was overturned in 1969. I therefore vacate my position.

          But I note that the 1969 decision, the Supreme Court ruling on Brandenburg v. Ohio, did not state that there were no limits to free speech. It merely replaced the standard of ‘clear and present danger’, established in the opinion written by Justice Holmes in Schenk v. United States, with the stricter standard of ‘imminent lawless action’, in determining what speech is not protected.

          Free speech absolutism, even in the United States, is supported neither by statute nor by common law.

          1. “The answer to bad speech is more speech.”

            Which means that rather than outlawing the shouting of fire in a theater, the answer is someone else shouting “Sit down and shut up, I’m trying to watch the movie!”

          1. The post I was addressing claimed that it was illegal even if there was a fire. The original case used “falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater” as an example of why protesting against the draft in WWI was not protected free speech–one of the reasons I consigned Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. to hell.

            The original case did not declare that shouting “Fire” in a public theater was illegal. It used the “obvious” nature of that as a reason to prohibit other speech in a really bad decision about other speech, which decision was actually overturned. Oh, and Holmes’ original wording said “falsely shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” People tend to forget that word “falsely.”

            Funny thing is, whenever anyone makes that “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” claim and you ask them to cite the law making it illegal, they sputter and hem and haw because there is no such law. The laws involved aren’t against the speech per se but things like “reckless endangerment” or the like.

            1. Exactly. Most people don’t realize that the problem isn’t the speech, but the potential outcome.

              If an actor, in the midst of performing a role, yells “Fire!”, then has he broken the law? Of course not. No one in the audience has any reason to believe there is a fire. All is well.

              AC/DC routinely calls out “Fire!” while performing one of their songs. They have never been prosecuted. Again, everyone knows that there is no fire, so there is no risk to human life.

              On the opposite end, if there actually IS a fire and people are in danger, yelling it out isn’t illegal. It’s a way to alert everyone that there is a fire after all.

              It’s when there is no fire that there becomes a problem.

              When people use the “You can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater” argument to justify guns, I like to remind them that their argument is more akin to firing a gun into a crowd due to the reckless endangerment aspects of the act than anything else. Gun control advocates tend to get really, really pissed when I do that for some reason.

  7. They want rules they will fight against, tooth and nail, if the rulers will change to ones they disapprove of and then use those rules in ways they don’t approve of – like if ‘hate speech’ would suddenly turn to mean “can’t say bad things about Christians”… (Yep, I am a pagan, and can be only a pagan because I both can’t believe everything Christianity, any branch, teaches, and do believe things this religion says don’t exist. But I respect that religion as a fundamental part of the building blocks of western civilization so I am getting pretty damn fed up with the attempts to tear it down)

    Either they assume that they are, truly, standing “in the right side of history” and things are going to change more and more to what they want, and future generations and even now living people can be “taught” to think in ways they approve of so those rules they want can never be used in ways they wouldn’t approve of.

    Or they just can’t think much ahead, being stuck in the current and assuming this is how it will be from now on, so anything that would work the way they want it to work now will always work the way it would work now (and of course even that isn’t guaranteed in the real world, it’s more or less just wishful thinking even for now)

    Bah. I suppose they just plain don’t think. They daydream.

    1. Thank you. This made my day. As a Christian, I’ve gotten sick of listening to the negative attitudes of many toward my religion. I once stood in St. John’s Hospital here in Detroit and listened to a Muslim man talk about how the depiction of Jesus was offensive. In a hospital owned and operated by the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. It’s such a nice change to hear someone who is not of my religion not vilify it.

      Also, on topic, I don’t remember anyone censoring said Muslim man for hate speech.

      1. Of course he did. Jesus was a murderous warlord, in the tradition of all proper(ie, just like Mohammed) prophets. He would never be so wimpy as to submit meekly to execution.

        (By the way, in the right frame of mind, reading the Koran’s version of the Old Testament is flerping _hilarious_. It’s self-insert Mary Sue fanfic all the way.)

        4. I too have read the Koran. It seemed obvious to me that it was an attempt at translation of the Old Testament by an illiterate. It was then addended with parables and commentary by tribal pagans.

          1. The truth seems more complicated than that. He appears to have talked to Jews and a small heretical Catholic sect. The later is responsible for his thinking Mary was part of the trinity.

            1. Apparently Mohammed was influenced by Monophysite Christianity, which was one of the heresies centered on Alexandria and rejected by the Councils of Chalcedon.

              2. Interesting discussion of the Monophysite beliefs and the interaction with the rise of the Muslims in the same area scattered through Drake and Flint on Belisarius against the Malwa – I can’t vouch for it but I suspect it’s as accurate about the historical time and place as say the Carce books are about Rome in 30 common era.

              3. It is far more likely that Muhammad was influenced by Nestorianism, which was the polar opposite of Monophysitism.

                The radical Monophysites held that Christ’s humanity was entirely subsumed into his divinity: that he was not ‘fully man and fully God’, but something like a human meat puppet operated by the Second Person of the Trinity. There is no way of getting from this view to the idea that Jesus is merely a prophet, as Islam contends.

                The Nestorians, however, held that Christ’s divine nature was separate from his human nature; that he was actually two separate persons in the same skin. From this view, all you have to do to arrive at the Muslim position is to deny that the divinity of Christ existed at all, and merely consider the human ‘person’ all there is.

                Where the Monophysites got mixed up with Islam: Because of their heretical views, they were always at loggerheads with Constantinople, and had this charming idea that all their sufferings were the Emperor’s fault and they would be better off to be ruled by outright unbelievers. They made no particular resistance to the Arab invasion, and did not find out how wrong they were until the invaders made them pay jizya. As dhimmis under the Caliphate, they suffered far worse legal disabilities than they had ever imagined under the Empire.

                1. One could probably slide easily out of Nestorianism by starting to downplay the full divinity, and start sidling toward, say, divine inspiration indwelling, if one was not quite up to leaping straight to denial.

      2. I’ll bet said Muslim did not leave to go to another hospital. No, the hospital was supposed to change to suit him, personally.

        The common thread among such complaints is ME ME ME. The world is supposed to change to suit ME, DAMMIT!

        Everybody wants to rule the world.

      4. Gotta say Jim, if you didn’t tell Mr. Mooselimb guy to fuck off right then, you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.

        That’s the problem. He doesn’t feel any restraint, but you’re afraid to call him on it. Because = Tanya. Result on the national scale, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo gets executed by a Mooslimb convert in front of the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

        Free country. He’s allowed to be a dick about your religion, you’re allowed to tell him to fuck off. Exercise your rights vigorously or don’t complain when you lose them.

        1. That’s fair. I did invite the “gentleman” to visit another hospital if he was so offended. I mean, Detroit Receiving is a state-owned hospital and, well hey, the care he received there probably wouldn’t be as good, but it wouldn’t be so OFFENSIVE…

          He declined to take me up on my offer of directions. I restrained myself from a straight “fuck off” only because my daughter was standing there and was a bit young for that kind of language. You’re right though. It was my choice to restrain myself and I take full responsibility for it.

        2. Not necessarily. Not giving in to the twits is exercising one’s rights, too. It also helps to give them a bored expression as they rave on.

    2. Or they just can’t think much ahead, being stuck in the current and assuming this is how it will be from now on, so anything that would work the way they want it to work now will always work the way it would work now (and of course even that isn’t guaranteed in the real world, it’s more or less just wishful thinking even for now)

      Exactly. It’s as if history, real history, began somewhere around 1960 or so, and everything that happened before is double-plus ungood badthink all the way down. Patriarchy, oppression, slavery and evil. Until the “enlightened” group came along to preach love and harmony and the blah blah blah.

      It’s a perfect storm of a lack of self-awareness, a lack of REALITY-awareness, ignorance of history, and failure to engage logic. Breathtaking, really. Also, very very sad.

  8. Okay, so based on the article’s quotations, Miss Cohen (any condescension applied is deliberate) thinks brutal satire is hate speech.
    What planet does she live on, and can we build a portal to send all the easily offended people there, (with enough supplies to give them a chance of survival if they’re willing to work) then blow the portal and leave them to their own devices?

    1. Given that the “easily offended” contingent appears to include a significant percentage of the Muslim population…I heartily endorse this plan!:-)

      1. It’s not that some of them are easily offended, it’s that if they have enough numbers, they drop Taqiyya in favor of agitating for Shariah.

        (It’s possible that the Great Deceiver is annoyed with them for breaking kayfabe before they had a lock on more Americans than the proggie elite.)

        1. Well, there are also areas where the local received version of Islam is significantly different from Saudi Salafi Sunni Islam.

          For example, there are many places out in the Islamic boonies where there are women imams and “judges” who lead both men and women at prayer and who teach religion to all the kids. These boonies have had them for hundreds of years. (Mostly because the men are busy, and women have more time to study at home being imams with Mom and Grandmom Imam.) Obviously these folks are highly in favor of their homebrew, sensible version of Islam and not in favor of the crazy version that actually comes from the books. But they don’t have the oil money – and of course, if there was money in being an imam, the men would naturally want in on it.

          1. Obviously these folks are highly in favor of their homebrew, sensible version of Islam

            The fact that it is taught by women is not proof that it is sensible.

              1. But does it, in point of fact? So far, we are working with an entirely vague claim about unspecified ‘places in the boonies’, with no information about where these places are, or what is taught there, or how Islam is practised there, or how widespread or effective these teachings may be.

                I shall remain entirely unconvinced until somebody adduces some actual information in support of this claim.

  9. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. . .

    You’re assuming she’s writing in ENGLISH. She isn’t. She’s writing in Newspeak, and when you parse it that way, it makes PERFECT sense to any Outer Party member in good standing. Just remember, Weakness is Strength! Censorship is Human Rights. And we have always been at war with Eastasia. . .

    Disagreement is Thoughtcrime, and the Ministry of Love will be dropping by to start your re-education process. . .

    1. Actually, it’s toddler. “Mommy, he mean! Waaaaah!” Too bad they never grew up. Maybe if we get tired of SJW we can call them Neverlanders.

  10. It was obvious to me the first time I heard the phrase. Hate speech == ThoughtCrime. It’s Orwellian. I say, “It’s spinach.” and I say, “To Hell with it!”

    M

  11. Let’s say Cohen is right, and anti-hate speech legislation passes.

    It’ll be tossed out in no time flat. Even if you took out the First Amendment grounds, there’s that whole “equal protection” thing. The very first time someone lashed out against white folks, or men, or whatever group isn’t considered a “worthy” class, and the law does nothing, then it becomes clear that all are not equal before the law.

    Now, unless we have an FDR to pack SCOTUS to approve of everything he does first, there’s no way a majority will look at hate speech laws as anything but a violation of the constitution.

    Cohen claims she’s a free speech activist, but she’s not. She’s an advocate for certain types of speech. Free speech activists? How about the lawyers who fought to permit Nazi’s to march in a Jewish community despite hating what they stood for?

    Kind and friendly speech needs no protection. Popular speech needs no protection. What does need protection are words that others find hateful or bigoted. Especially since I watched two friends called misogynistic and bigoted because they insisted on calling a pre-transition person a “he” instead of a “she”.

    No, I will never support legislation that would have those two friends jailed for that, and I’m more than willing to bet that many far younger than I will go even further.

      1. But colleges only set policy on their campuses. They don’t create law.

        I’ve gone off more than once about the poor understanding of constitutional rights that modern college campuses have, but they are (thankfully) unable to jail people unless there is an actual violation of the law. The worst thing they can do is expel someone.

        Of course, I’d still like to see someone get these college policies up in front of SCOTUS on both First Amendment and Equal Protection grounds. From a non-private college, that is. A private school can do just about anything it wants.

    2. “It’ll be tossed out in no time flat.”

      I hate to disagree, but you need only look North to Canada to see that your optimism is unwarranted. Look up Ezra Levant and the Western Standard, you’ll find Ezra all over Google for getting dragged into court.

      Example: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/10/14/exceedingly-political-libel-case-pits-free-speech-advocate-ezra-levant-against-master-of-lawfare/

      This is one of those hills you make a stand on. Canadians didn’t, and now we can’t say a lot of things for fear of ruination via the courts. The process is the punishment.

      Gun control is another such hill. We didn’t stand on that one either. Things are not so free in the Demented Dominion, but they are -very- politically correct.

        1. Actually as our resident Canadian patriot whose comments I don’t let through because he’s likely to be off his meds and almost as bad as Clampsy is likely to remind us WITH PRIDE they’ve had something like 10 constitutions. So they’re more up to date and responsive and sh*t.

          2. We have had two constitutions, Ma’am. If you are going to mock us, don’t make a fool of yourself by getting elementary facts wrong.

            The current constitution of Canada promises freedom of speech with one hand, and then with the other hand takes it away with a lot of weasel words about ‘reasonable’ restrictions. And while laws like our 1960 Bill of Rights remain technically in force, they are dead letters because the courts refuse to adjudicate ‘human rights’ cases based on any earlier law than the 1982 constitution.

            1. Exaggeration for effect, it’s an element of humor. Humor. Perhaps you’ve heard the word?

              1. I don’t find it funny when people tell stupid lies about my country. Of course Mrs. Hoyt has a right to say such things, and she even has a right to think that they are funny; but if she intended that as a joke, then let her say so herself. YOU have no authority to decide that, and NOBODY has the authority to require me to laugh. So blow it out your ear.

                  1. A Book Loving Dragon glances at a tub of very cold water and wonders if it will be needed to cool some people down.

                    1. Not I, I shall retire the field. I respect the Dragon’s opinion regarding topics and closure.

                  2. You’re being deliberately insulting and provocative. Don’t tell me you’re such a nitwit that you expect the person being insulted to find it funny.

                    A hint for you: ‘So, no, then?’ is not even remotely witty. You’re preening yourself on a superiority that you do not even begin to possess; you are putting yourself in the position of the fool who is dead last in the race, looking over his shoulder and feeling proud because he is so far ahead of the competition that he can’t even see them behind him. There is humour of a sort in such a situation, but it is entirely unintentional on the fool’s part.

                    1. I thank you for doing your part to destroy silly stereotypes and proving Canadians are perfectly capable of being disagreeable people you don’t really want to be around. Long live America’s Hat.

                    2. proving Canadians are perfectly capable of being disagreeable people you don’t really want to be around.

                      So responding to an insult makes one a disagreeable person, but insulting people in the first place does not? I see.

                      Clearly this falls under the heading of the well-known legal principle, ‘The fight started when Billy hit me back.’

                    4. People looking to BE insulted are annoying and disagreeable.

                      Oh, of course! Clearly I had my hand up Eamon J. Cole’s arse and used him as a ventriloquist’s dummy. It’s not as if he actually insulted me, oh, no. He would never have said those things if I hadn’t been looking for it.

                1. Fair enough. I’m finding I’m prickly and irritable tonight and Mr. Simon’s admonishment to not “make a fool of yourself” galled me, likely out of proportion.

                  Since it would seem I’ve sparked some consternation in him, I think it best if I get out of this chair and be on to something else.

            2. Not my fault. I haven’t studied Canada and I’m not mocking you! The local resident Canadian patriot said there were something like ten — I’m not going to name him, since I don’t let his posts through. I assumed he knew what he was talking about. I’m sorry.

              1. Apology accepted; and I apologize in turn for being intemperate.

                It probably isn’t the greatest idea, however, if you’re going to ban someone from commenting, to help him out by making his silly remarks for him.

  12. This is an area that hits home, because Sib and I strongly disagree on this topic. Sib feels that some speech should be prohibited, and that hate-crime laws are OK. I believe that people should be allowed to say and write what they want, so long as it is not direct incitement to riot or murder, and that the .gov has no grounds for punishing people for what they might or might not have been thinking when they attacked someone or something. It’s a topic we don’t talk about anymore. Yeah, I’m getting really tired of “bash the Christian/Jew/ straight/Anglo/Male” cr@p, but I’m not going to sue. I got really tired of W-boro B(INO) Church’s stunts, but I didn’t tear their signs down. Instead I bought an extra ticket to whatever they were having the vapors about (Sandi Patti concert? Really guys?) and brought a friend.

    1. Any person who supports banning “hate speech” should have to have their speech banned. [Frown]

    2. The idea of banning some speech is quite tempting because there are plenty of such groups and individuals as those W-boro ones around. And it is of course quite possible to create hate towards a group even if you don’t openly advocate violence against them. So I have always felt a bit conflicted about this. Except I have to admit that trying to keep the bans somewhere reasonable is, it seems, somewhere between hard and impossible. There will always be plenty of those individual cases where in THAT particular case a ban does seem quite reasonable, except then it will sooner or later be used in something superficially similar but still different enough that it no longer is, and nobody can think of everything in advance so this will keep on happening once we start going that way. A slippery slope indeed.

      Your preferred solution would admittedly probably work much better in the long run because it keeps things simple.

      1. Important to note that however great a bunch of a-holes the W-boro bunch may be, their body count so far is zero.

        While this may be viewed as “damning with faint praise”, the same cannot be said of other religious groups.

        2. They’re not a religious group.

          They’re a trolling-for-lawsuit-fodder group, and not very secretive about it; if it wasn’t so handy a hammer to use to show how horrible “Christians” are, this would be common knowledge.

          1. Founded by a life-long Democrat activist, and conform to the worst caricature of religious people the Democrats try to sell.

            There is no accident there.

            1. And occasionally a kid recently turned adult related to the founders leaves the group and provides revealing statements about the organization.

    3. What about meh-crime laws? For dastardly deeds committed not out of icky evil hatred, but because for you, it was Tuesday…

  13. Having read that I’m… ugh… god, i hope i never run into her at a con, I’m likely to use hate speech.

  14. Cohen gives a pretty clear indication where her policy would lead when she says she’s all for freedom of speech for “LGBT activists” and other mascots of the Cultural Marxist movement.

    Notice how the left was all for free speech back in the 60s, but now that it commands academia, Hollywood, and the Feral Government, it seeks to deny free speech to its opponents.

    1. Her elastic definitions of human rights could just as easily be made to include the right to kill LGBTs for the sake of public safety.

  15. I now have the chorus of this ear worm stuck in my head… thank you Danny Kaye:

    (I hope that worked) These people don’t realize how broadly laws prohibiting speech would be applied. (Or maybe some of them do and are counting on it.) If you prohibit people saying terrible things to one another you make it far more difficult to speak to one another about why such things are inappropriate. There was a law the Supreme Court struck down a while back that was aimed at certain videos on the internet involving stomping animals to death. It made ‘any depiction of an animal being injured or killed’ illegal. The news spun it as the supreme court being pro-cruelty. A few of us read the available information from the supreme court itself, and explained to the raging fools who bought the medias interpretation (fortunately most of them young enough to not have ossified yet.) that they’d just banned the vast majority of the Discovery Channel’s animal shows, as well as any documentary on the evils of cruelty to animals because those had depictions of animals being injured and killed. Banning something as nebulous as ‘hate speech’ would have similar far reaching issues.

    1. But, but… the law of unintended consequences isn’t real! It doesn’t apply to Really Good Ideas! And they MUST be Really Good Ideas, because… well, FEELZ!

      FEELZ is the only important thing!

      (Sigh. It’s exhausting to emulate that mindset…)

      1. *passes cookies and your choice of caffeinated beverage to revive you.* The advantage of the internet: Magical beverages that become what you wish through the power of generic text.

        Also… on ‘Good Ideas’ They keep using those words. I don’t think those words mean what they think they mean.

        1. Ask anyone who’s worked with / in the military whether a visit from the Good Idea Fairy is welcomed…. 😎

  16. Happy about living in the right country, indeed.
    Free speech is a polite fiction in much of the world. That includes — in spite of popular misconceptions — the “democratic” countries of Western Europe. In those, correct speech is free, but incorrect speech isn’t. A simple proof is that in most of them, organizations — even political parties — can be prohibited and disbanded if they offend the powers that be. Similarly, books can be banned, or magazines.
    Did you know that Charlie Hebdo came into existence after its predecessor (“Hara Kiri”) was closed down by the French government? In fact, the name “Charlie” is taken from Charles de Gaulle, the target of the satire in Hara Kiri that got it banned.
    Another example: some years ago, the Dutch government (in a speech delivered by queen Beatrix) said explicitly that “there is no right to offend”. No indeed, European governments do not recognize free speech.

        1. Oops. Somebody with a telescope just spotted a large, strangely fish-like, asteroid rotating ominously (has to get it’s ominous rotate on, no music is space).

          Apparently there’s a tag: Special Delivery for Wayne Blackburn.

          Maybe it’s another guy?

    4. Now see, me being a gentleman, if I had your email, I would have told you to wait until after the birth of the baby to read it. Nothing like a sputtering rage to cure postpartum depression… or at least that’s my theory.

      1. Happily, the bp meds which render me sleepy most of the time also make it difficult to focus, so as soon as they kick in for enforced naptime I am quite unable to hold onto intense emotions bar “hungry’ and ‘sleepy’. I think it’s a response to my body going “okay, focusing all resources to development of new human being.”

        (And, as I’ve prepped the fridge to provide easy to heat food, I can relax for a few days and actually shut my brain off and not worry.)

  18. The left side of history, has not been and never can be, the right side of history, except in advance. I guess they’ve figured that out.

    1. Nonsense. All leftist ventures succeed because if they don’t succeed, they get the Ministry of Truth to write ’em out of history.

  19. Typical liberal, can’t think or reason beyond the immediate and thinks that history has a right side and a wrong side (I saw Tad Williams say something similar about history a few months ago). The idea that someone is going to define ‘hate speech’ is completely terrifying to people who realize that the people in power now (and doing the defining) aren’t likely to be the people in power tomorrow (and thus able to redefine the term).

  20. Salmon Rushdie calls such people part of the “But Parade”. They says, we want free speech, “but not xxx”. BTW: He said this on Bill Maher’s show, who believes the same thing even being a liberal. They are both mad at newspapers censoring the Charlie Hebo cartoons.

    1. James Lileks uses the analogy of a plinth with a statue. No matter how fancy the plinth is, the statue is the point; when someone has this long flowery speech working up to a BUT, then that speech is nothing more than an elaborate plinth upon which one rests the true point of your argument.

      Making the plinth really pretty is meant to disguise this from the listener – and, as in Ms. Tanya’s case, oneself. As I get older and see these nonsense arguments over and over (Lileks’ analogy is at least a decade old at this point), I begin to suspect that the self-deception is the actual point, to deaden the intellect and numb the conscience to the point where it no longer hurts to spit out such obvious stupidities.

      1. Sometimes it seems that they think thinking in these convoluted ways which lead to conclusions which usually tend to be anything but common sense (or any sense) is the mark of an intelligent, sophisticated person. And using common sense means that one is, well, common, as in uneducated simple (and not the polite meaning of simple) country pumpkin who just doesn’t get all the nuances and would want to use simplistic solutions which most times don’t work. Because the real world is nuanced and complex and whatever, and even if it looks like a nail and there is a hammer it probably really isn’t a nail – it might actually be a sapling – and so using the hammer would be a grave mistake.

        Admittedly true, sometimes. But lots of times the nail really is a nail, and the hammer is the most sensible solution. They just want it to be something else pretty much every time. Maybe because pretending that it isn’t just a nail does make them feel smarter than the people who pick up that hammer.

        1. Reasoning is taking A and figuring B, right?

          More advanced reasoning is taking A and getting to C.

          Really really smart folks can go from A to M.

          Lots of steps.

          But the catch is that B, C and M have to all be true, and generally all the points between should be true, also. (Or you’ll have the right answer, and then it’ll be lost when someone figures out that F was wrong, and it’ll take a bunch of time to do it the right way.)

          They’re looking for markers– I think we’ve talked about it here before. Someone did a study and found that kids who had “concrete goals” at 13 were more successful later in life, so… my teachers had us write “concrete goals.” (Only acceptable ones, mind you.)
          Totally ignored that the most likely reason that 13 year olds with life goals tended to be successful because THEY HAD A PASSIONATE GOAL AT 13.

          Likewise, home ownership being a mark of the middle class, they tried to make more folks home owners… when the pattern is more “the traits that make it so you can own a house make you more successful.”

  21. I once set a sweet, innocent, cute little leftist female to crying in a discussion over hate speech. You see, limiting free speech because of what someone else finds acceptable is an idea that I find to be, quite frankly, offensive. So she said something about “hate speech” and the “right to not be offended” and I lost my ever-loving mind.

    For those of you who have never seen it, please believe me when I tell you that purple-faced, fire-breathing, raging Jimbo is not a pretty sight. If you don’t believe me feel free to try it some time.

    What had her in tears was not the fact that I was angry though. This is good because intimidating women isn’t and if I would have scared a grown woman badly enough to bring tears to her eyes I would have felt like an idiot. What made her cry was the fact that she had offended another human being. She honestly believed all that crap about the “right to not be offended.” It never occurred to her that someone would be offended by something she had said. She assumed that we were all in agreement. What gets me is the arrogance displayed by her and others like her.

    It is my honest belief that when Tanya Cohen wrote this article she gave no thought to defining hate speech because (in her eyes) WE ALL AGREE TO WHAT HATE SPEECH IS. The Useful Idjits of the world tend to believe that we all really believe exactly what they (as individuals) do and that there is no need for someone to define it. That attitude is what set me off.

    1. It’s been scientifically proven that we understand them fairly well, but they don’t understand us a damn bit.

      So, with that in mind, it’s actually fairly easy to see how someone like that would believe that we all really see eye to eye on certain things. They can’t grasp how we could disagree. At all.

      Which is why they genuinely hate us. In their mind, the issue isn’t a disagreement based on reasoning. They don’t see how we could look at things and reach a different conclusion. They think we reached the same conclusion and chose to disagree with them anyways!

      That’s why we “hate the poor”. It’s because we saw that welfare was good for them and decided to oppose it anyways, and not because we see that it lulls people into complacency and rewards laziness.

      Honestly, the same is true on about a thousand other topics as well. And, it’s annoying.

      2. One might make an analogy with a Christian that assumes that everyone accepts Christ as real, that it is the other stuff that is the sticking point. I’m not sure I’ve every come across even one of those.

        As for hating the poor, I’ve had someone I know personally personally charge me with that. Someone that had access to information that, intellectually analyzed, might support the argument that I was poor (in fairness, I don’t like myself much when I’m not working), and that I think that government welfare is bad for me. At worst, based on what I was saying at the time, it might be a matter of not liking specific people. Ah well, it was and is a mess, and I’m used to that person reacting on emotion.

    2. Well, there might be hope for that one yet. If she’s prepared to think of you as an actual person with a “right to not be offended,” then her brain hasn’t totally ossified yet.

    3. She’s the kind there may be hope for. If she is honest enough to accept that she offended you, rather than taking umbrage, enough work might bring her back to reality. I say might because some are sensitive enough that they retreat from any thought of reality instead.

  22. I suppose king George III would have considered Jefferson and Paine to be purveyors of hate speech.

    1. For years, Leftists have been calling those of us who warned them that fighting to uphold the Constitution is possible “traitors”.

      My response has always been that I guarantee George Washington was NEVER referred to as “Father of his Country” in Lord Cornwallis’ officers mess.

    3. Good call. Some of the political cartoons of the day, on both sides of the Atlantic, were close to Charlie Hebdo territory. There were also chamber pots with the image of George III on the inside.

  23. In this country we have long had the tradition that it only becomes a crime once you have moved beyond mere discussion of a subject to taking action or inciting others to take action.

    I would suggest that we do have laws against hate speech. Suppose you have committed a crime that harms someone or a group. In the course of the investigation it is determined that you possibly targeted the person or persons because they represented one of a selected number of protected groups because it is on record that you harbor a generic hatred against said group, rather than had a specific problem with the individual or individuals themselves. Then you can face the added charge of committing a hate crime.

    1. “Hater” crimes are unconstitutional. Also illogical. How does “hate” make murder/rape/assault any worse?

      1. I purposely made no statement about my opinion of the constitutionality of hate crime legislation. To note the existence of something does not equate with either approval or disapproval.

      2. Disclaimer: I do not support the concept of hate crimes. I don’t think prosecuting emotions is a good thing.

        The reasoning is that a crime committed against a person with hatred towards people like that person adds to the victims of the crime. The person who was murdered/raped/assaulted is the direct victim. The other people who are purposefully terrorized and intimidated by that act are additional victims, and so create an additional crime.

        To me, it makes more sense to prosecute intimidation and threat in addition to the murder than to create a new crime for pretty much the same thing. But hey, I’m not a lawyer. 🙂

        1. It’s funny about “hate crime” laws.

          There was a complaint (when George W Bush was either President or running for President) that Texas didn’t have “hate crime” laws and there was a case about a Black man being brutally murdered in Texas.

          The “fun” part is that the murderers were found guilty and given the strongest punishments available (IIRC one was sentenced to death).

          Texas didn’t have “hate crime” laws but still severely punished the murderers.

          How much more did the complainers want?

          Drawn and quartered for the murderers?

          1. I had this same conversation with a bunch of lefties a few years back. I asked them what they could have done that was:

            A.) Worse than the death penalty

            and

            B.) Constitutional.

            I’ll let you know when I get a response.

          2. How much more did the complainers want?

            Drawn and quartered for the murderers?

            They don’t want “hate crime” laws to punish murderers. They want “hate crime” laws to punish people who say mean things of which they do not approve.

          3. I believe you have some details wrong. Bush opposed a hate crimes statute inspired by the murder of a Gay man in a particularly brutal manner (he was, if I recall, dragged to death behund a pickup). What his critics missed was that he SIGNED the death warrants of the murderers.

            1. Strange that I remember that *Black* man dragged to death by a pickup. [Wink]

          4. “How much more did the complainers want?”

            Reeling and writhing and fainting in coils.

  24. Writer William Voegeli in a interview for the Blaze about liberalism, “It can either become a cult that demands its members devote themselves to self-abnegation, or reassess whether the reconciliation of interest and duty it has formulated is either as morally compelling or as realistic as its adherents have long supposed.” http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2015/01/14/why-this-author-concludes-liberalism-must-either-become-a-cult-or-question-its-very-foundations/,
    that ship has sail.

  25. As I said elsewhere…. Miss Cohen’s article offends me. By her own argument, she must withdraw the article, apologize for the offense, and spend some months of introspection on her sins before she attempts to publish again… yeah, that makes sense… O.o

    1. I’m afraid that’s insufficient. Since Miss Cohen’s article advocates for re-education camps, her spending some months on introspection is insufficient.

      No, she needs to be strapped to a chair and be given the full Clockwork Orange treatment to make sure she commits no further transgressions.

  26. one of the simple rules of laws is “Would I want my political enemies to have this power, and do I expect them to not abuse the power?” if the answer is NO! then guess what? It is a bad law. You know good and well miss cohen would not those of us here defining what was hate speech.
    Many of those on her side of history either think this is a good idea or think that they can ride this idea into power and stay there. Both are equally dangerous.

  27. “Screaming as loudly and offensively as we can that the king is naked.”

    Let’s be reasonable. Sometimes the king is fully clad.

    the reason why we let people scream the king is naked even then is that we can not trust anyone to suppress only false and dangerous speech, that anyone given the power will use it suppress what he dislikes especially if it’s true.

    Freedom of speech is not like the prohibition of murder, which is in the oldest law codes known because it is obviously wrong. It is as counter-intuitive as steering into a skid on ice. The pretext that it is an obvious virtue tends to cause the whole discussion of free speech to be silly, with the opponents saying, “It causes bad things” as if that were not obvious from day 1, and the supporters going “Free speech” as if that was all that was to be said.

  28. Pingback: Join Arms and March | Cedar Writes

    1. I often find myself pondering how much of what I see might have been written as parody. It is a sad thing.

    2. That idea has been floated a time or two regarding an earlier piece Cohen did (assuming that’s who you’re talking about). It may well be, and if so, bravo!

      Unfortunately, my cynicism gland tells me otherwise.

    3. I found an article, while trying to determine where Ms. Cohen was from in response to Tom asking the question, claiming that it was clearly satire.

      However, in light of her follow-up article, and her twitter account, I am afraid that it’s not, unless she is a really good actor.

        1. It isn’t judging by her history. Don’t worry, it’s short: two articles “Here is why its time to get tough on hate speech in America” and the current one, as well as a twitter feed that seems to be mostly full of retweets recently about “Hate Speech” and legal action against such around the world.

          She describes herself as a “Human rights activist and writer.” Thus far, the comments on her two articles are overwhelmingly against her proposed actions. Amazing, isn’t it how we backwards American people (and those American in spirit) actually *read* history, and recognize reconstituted National Socialist bullsh*t when we see it.

          The comments section of her second article has Tom Kratman and Michael Z Willaimson in it, as well as a couple of Huns I spotted. There *might* have been two comments sorta, halfway supporting something she might have mumbled here and there, outside of Clampsie’s obligatory vomitus.

          The comments, there and here, are good. I’m not adding much to it (no need for the repetition), but my middle fingers have been active in the direction of those who want to censor me and mine. Freedoms are there to protect the vile, the offensive, the adversarial from governmental intrusion (not personal consequence).

          Stuff that makes folks nod their heads or at least just roll their eyes doesn’t really need the protection. We protect that sort of speech so when the day comes that *we* must speak what the government does not want to hear, they cannot throw us under the jail or put us up against a wall and shoot us to keep us silent. It’s the first amendment because it is that damned important.

          Where would be we without “Hate Speech?” We’d not be a country. Miss Cohen would be well served to read, and consider most carefully, the words of Thomas Payne (“Common Sense” incited a Revolution. We live the benefits of it today), Frederic Bastiat, James Madison, and a few other old-time Odds that fought for her right to be wrong, offensive, and even hated- but not jailed or shot for her speech.

          Sorry, didn’t mean to ramble. Bad habit. *chuckle*

  30. The problem with the United nations appeal to “Honor” and “Dignity” is that they don’t MEAN Honor and Dignity; they mean the protected status of pampered children. It does someone no honor nor does it dignify him to refrain from treating him like an adult and telling him he is full of dung.

    The core issue with this little twit is that she TRUSTS the State. As an institution. The Founders did NOT trust the State. They might try to use it, and give it vast powers when they were in charge (I love them dearly, but they started to weasel around the Bill of Rights before the ink was dry) but they certainly didn’t TRUST it.

    Nobody has ever taught this little girl that NO authority should ever go unquestioned. She may have repeated the slogan “Question Authority” but she never considered that it mean to question the authority of the people who taught her the slogan. She is a perpetual child, and if her policies are ever allowed to reach fruition she will stand in the slave market, or before the execution-wall wondering tearfully how THAT happened.

    She desperately, desperately needs to have people treat her like an adult, and tell her how stupid, how destructive, hoe anti-freedom her every thought is. It will hurt her desperately, but without that pain she will spend her entire life as an intellectual infant, spewing goo at both ends.

    1. Heh. A little while ago I argued with a very staunchly leftists friend (well, she’d say liberal, and think she means the European version of liberal, but the fact is that most of her opinions fit what you guys mean when you use the word and DON’T mean the classical liberal version) about something, and what she said was that the big difference between us is that I don’t trust the state, and she does.

      Of course she thinks she is the smart one.

      *Sigh*

      And she’s a Jew (mixed, but from mother’s side, so…).

      1. To me it seems that people like her think the way they do mostly because they find that world comforting. It’s all about feelings. Like a kid who will hide under the blanket when she thinks something scary might be right there in the dark bedroom they will hide in this fantasy and tell themselves both that the blanket will keep them safe and that there really isn’t anything scary there anyway.

        And it will work just fine unless one night something real and scary does enter.

              1. One of the old “The Far Side” comic strips depicted a snorkel that would allow kids hiding under the covers to breathe and therefore escape the awful monsters even longer.

  31. A politician once said, “Judge a law not by the good it might accomplish if applied fairly, but by the harm it might cause if abused.”
    May have been Johnson, can’t find it on a quick check. In any case, it seems to be a concept the SJW simply cannot wrap their tiny little brains around.
    Does seem to be a common trait amongst the herd. It does not really matter how much damage they cause, because their intentions were well meant.

    1. I once looked straight at a group of leftards and uttered the words, “The problem with you people is that you never stop to ask yourselves the question, What’s the worst that could happen?” I can still hear the silence I was met with. The memory of the shocked looks on their faces has cheered me up on many occasions when I needed a reason to smile. I don’t think they’re capable of thinking an idea through. If nothing else, it’s not something that’s encouraged.

      2. Heck, Jim, I asked that of a whole bunch of Republicans that same question about the Patriot Act. As far as I could tell, they really, truly believed that Clinton would be the last Democrat president ever. And they were all old enough they ought to have known better.

        1. Let me tout the no true Republican is a member of the stupid party fallacy here.

          FWIW the Idaho delegation opposed the Patriot Act. Be of good cheer is sound counsel but I reminded of a political activist who actually expected beyond hope that Goldwater would prevail.

          I may have taken Sergeant Zim who avoided profane or I suppose scatological language save special cases too much to heart. I suppose the 2 Baen writers with all their skills and I suspect even love of language enjoyed an opportunity to indulge in public. I may have to rethink.

          On the other hand most of those much younger than I am – notably to include SJW of my acquaintance – seem to make those their first choice of words. Reflects no doubt the depth of their thought.

          1. Yeah, we had a democrat who voted against the Patriot Act–a representative. Unfortunately he lost the next election. (Walt Minnick. I voted for him based on that one vote, didn’t do him any good. Every single candidate I voted for in that election lost)
            I was talking about ordinary Republican voters–family members, some of them.

  32. The more things change:

    At bottom I am for conserving the full powers of every person on earth by expanding them to their individual limits. Therefore, I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It sums up into one single purpose — the abolition of the system dog-eat-dog under which we live, and the substitution by the most effective non-violence possible of a system of cooperative ownership and use of all wealth.

    which is of course from Roger Baldwin founder of the ACLU – the ACLU picks and chooses among civil liberties no end. Logically the ACLU might be supporting the open carry movement in fact of course not.

    For myself I’d have no problem with a theater ticket having as much legalese on the back as a claim check at a parking garage making it a contract violation to yell fire needlessly. Legally I’ll go free speech absolutist. Looking at the record of Sandy Berger on state secrets the nomenklatura thinks rules like taxes are for little people.

  33. But, but, murdering Tanya Cohen as part of a systemic campaign targeting those politically similar is a form of political speech. And political speech is always protected!

    Which is to say I have plans later today to write up some speech, not appropriate for this venue, that would be considered hate speech in violation of human rights by that one.

    The world is full of people trying to shoe in all sorts of nonsense under the heading of human rights. Once someone respects a concept, people naturally try to exploit that. The counter is understanding and explaining one’s definition.

    In this case, perhaps it right to find something that one is willing to say that might be classified as hate speech against the LGBT cause. Remember what Eich got fired for?

  34. Sarah, trust me you really do need to go look at Tanya baby’s article. Skip right over her puerile babblings though and go straight to the comments.
    Warning!!! Do not, for the sake of your keyboard, be ingesting any liquids when you do so. You see, Charlie Martin, Tom Kratman, and Mike Williamson all managed to find their way there and offered their restrained and erudite opinions on the merit of her remarks.

      1. Long list of comments, not a one in support of the precious flower’s foolishness. Must say that Mad Mike in particular needs to stop holding back and say what he really thinks.
        In my humble opinion, Ms. Cohen has had her a$$ rightly and properly handed back to her.

        1. I’ve run out of time to read the rest. I’m gonna go attempt to get ready for work. Maybe I can make it today. The comments will slow me with the occasional giggle as they come back to mind.

            1. Either that, or she was hoping for vehement disagreement she could spin into threats a la GamerGate. Disagreement is hate speech and threatening, after all.

              1. Ayup. And there’s things there which could definitely be spun that way.

                “Oh, look at the horrible hate speech and death threats! Surely this proves my point that hatey-hate-speech is evil wicked nasty wrong and should be prohibited forthwith.”

    3. It’s not just them. I see ya’ll are having a grand romp. You mean people. You’re sending that poor SJW screaming intot he night, crying about the Feels… Expect more whining soon. (Popcorn. I MUST and will buy popcorn.)

        1. Speaking of trolls, it looks like someone in those comments isn’t taking their warning from the police seriously. 🙂

    4. Given their capacity for language, I would really rather they had engaged in proving to the precious flower how effing* stupid what she was saying is, since I’m sure she won’t get it from what they did say.

      But hey, free speech.

      * really, Firefox? “effing” is in your dictionary, but some of the other things I type that are REAL words aren’t?

    5. Of course Tanya Baby’s comment about that stuff was that all the disagreement was based on hate and it was all hate speech, which made her point.

      2. The right side of history would seem to be tyranny, seeing how so much of human history was spent under it.

  36. Her list of the sorts of speech that ought to be prohibited is worth the read though:

    Speech which offends, insults, demeans, threatens, disrespects, discriminates against, and/or incites hatred or violence against a person or a group of people based on their [list of seventeen criteria elided] and/or any other comparable distinction. In cases where hate speech is aggravated – such as incitement to genocide – prison sentences should be even longer.

    This, at least, is the standard definition of “hate speech”. If you love liberty you will still defend the people engaging in such, but if you’re a decent human being you won’t interact with them beyond this defense. But she goes on…

    The spreading of misinformation, including climate change denial, denial of war crimes and genocides (especially Holocaust denial), conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine propaganda, and general nonsense.

    Aside from how abusable the power to restrict such speech might be (and of course she left off “speaking against eugenics, which as all right-thinking people know is the scientifically proven path to a better society”) several comments made variations the same point: In Europe where Holocaust denial is forbidden by law, dabbling in the practice is a good way for a marginal voice to wear the cloak of a martyr. In the U.S., it’s a good way to get people to point and laugh, and to be otherwise ignored.

    Anti-feminist, anti-multicultural, anti-immigration, and/or anti-equality ideology.

    This list, for example, which puts such ideologies in false disreputable light.

    Insulting, disrespectful, and/or offensive speech in general and speech that violates the dignity of people. […]

    Speech that disparages the memory of deceased persons.

    Except, one assumes, the Founding Fathers.

    Speech that voices approval of oppressive, anti-freedom, anti-democratic, and/or totalitarian ideologies. […]

    To prevent cranial combustion I’ve elided her examples. But where there’s a conflict between a free democracy and an oppressive totalitarian régime in the making, guess which side she wants to criminalize support of?

    Speech that opposes any human rights. This would mean that anyone saying that hate speech shouldn’t be against the law would be prosecuted, since hate speech is universally recognized as an injustice and a human rights violation.

    And if the lawmakers do their jobs really right, this can be made retroactive so everyone who criticised this article will be sent away for 25 years of re-education!

    It would also include propaganda for war, which is illegal under international human rights law.

    Speech that incites, instructs, assists, condones, celebrates, justifies, glorifies, advocates, or threatens violence and/or law-breaking and speech that undermines the rule of law. This would include, for example, the advocacy of gun ownership […]

    Is it starting to sound like she wants to make it impossible to ever change the rules she’s writing?

    Speech that undermines the authority of the state and/or interferes with the state’s ability to properly function and do its job. This would also include speech that undermines the authority of the United Nations and/or international law.

    Yep.

    Speech that objectifies women and/or reduces them to their sexual dimension, such as pornography and catcalling.

    How about “don’t stick it in crazy”—is that still allowed?

    Speech that promotes unacceptable ideas, such as un-democratic ideologies and ideologies that oppose freedom. […]

    Umm…

    Speech that harms and/or divides society in general, including speech that damages social cohesion.

    Okay, this has got to be a troll, dangling juicy flame-bait

    Symbols associated with hateful and/or un-democratic ideologies, such as Nazi swastikas and Confederate flags.

    This list includes remarkable attention to such details.

    Gestures and salutes associated with hateful and/or un-democratic ideologies, such as fascist salutes.

    How about the number four, counted in binary on my fingers?

    Speech which constitutes microaggressions against vulnerable minorities.

    Yes, ma’am.

    Images or recordings of any crimes.

    I assume there will be exceptions for official publications by the Department of History, or how will people know to hate Emmanuel Goldstein?

    Speech which may lead to tensions with other nations and/or upset people in other nations.

    This is really a delightful form of the heckler’s veto. (But if Kate Paulk gets upset, will Miss Cohen shut up? 😈 )

    Speech which is found to be blasphemous towards minority religions.

    Except conservative Christianity or Judaism. Or Usaians. But they’re nasty fundamentalists and don’t represent their actual religion.

    Depictions of indecent violence (especially violence against women) and/or other offensive content.

    Not sure why this isn’t covered by #16.

    Speech which is found to be irresponsible, unethical, antisocial, hurtful, impolite, uncivil, abusive, distasteful, and/or unacceptable in general.

    Beautifully vague and open-ended. Makes all previous point superfluous, really: “You may say anything (we believe in freeze peach after all!) except if someone objects.
    If there weren’t so many of her points actually enshrined as law in some European countries, it would be much easier to discount this as satire. But I don’t think it is—not intentionally, anyway.

    2. Little Tanya’s circular logic has her nose so far up her own bum she can’t apparently recognize that by her definition her own article is hate speech.
      Mark me down as highly offended by her micro aggression. I shall expect compensation to arrive shortly, cash only, small bills please.

    3. Hm. So if a doctor tells me that I should lose some weight, I could maybe get him jailed because he is implying that I am too fat, which is judging my appearance, which is perhaps sexist because it could also be construed as implying I am not attractive as a woman the way I currently am – especially if the doctor is a man – and that is all insulting and… now what else…

      Ookay…

    4. Speech that incites, instructs, assists, condones, celebrates, justifies, glorifies, advocates, or threatens violence and/or law-breaking and speech that undermines the rule of law. […]
      So she is all for arresting the fools wearing Che shirts, right?

  37. Surely unlike little Tanya, you can think. What is honor? What is dignity? Define those concepts in absolute enough terms that they can be used in law.

    *wry* The dignity one, at least, is yet another theft and redefinition, while rejecting the foundation and related philosophy.

    The Founders were pointing at it quite famously. Here’s the CCC on it:
    THE DIGNITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

    1700 The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God (article 1); it is fulfilled in his vocation to divine beatitude (article 2). It is essential to a human being freely to direct himself to this fulfillment (article 3). By his deliberate actions (article 4), the human person does, or does not, conform to the good promised by God and attested by moral conscience (article 5). Human beings make their own contribution to their interior growth; they make their whole sentient and spiritual lives into means of this growth (article 6). With the help of grace they grow in virtue (article 7), avoid sin, and if they sin they entrust themselves as did the prodigal son1 to the mercy of our Father in heaven (article 8). In this way they attain to the perfection of charity.

    They’re users.

    They take things they think might be a handy hammer and abuse it, even if that means removing it from the place that it makes sense, removing the subtleties that make it what it is, and … it’s just a means to an end. Any means will work, as long as they get what they want.

    😦

  38. That Tanya never even contemplates that the ability to define “hate speech” is going to be in the hands of the ruling class…

    Neat trick, how the authoritarians have convinced a whole class of “caring, free spirits” to hand control of their expression, their thoughts and their very lives to a bunch of petty, power-hungry thugs.

    Then she’ll stop being the sweat rag of totalitarian wanna-bes.

    I was thinking more — strap-like. After all, she’s working so hard to hold up the pendulous bag of cankerous ideas dangling from her betters. Trying so earnestly to see the shaft prepared for everyone else.

    Or is that hateful?

    😐

      1. I assumed everyone had their own bottle handy before they wandered out to the internet.

        Problem being, mine’s so often empty. 😦

                1. Exactly! You never know how spicy it is until you taste it!

                  Er…uh…that could go bad really fast.

          2. Because they keep posting links to this kinda stuff?

            Or if you prefer… because it has to be refined from the single tear a former SJW sheds when they realize the truth?

    2. She wants to be anti-authoritarian while simultaniously being the authority. Since she either hasn’t read Terry Pratchett, or failed to understand it if she did, she misses the essential Zen/Vimsean problem at the core of that impulse and where Sam Vimes pulls it off by embracing being a walking contradiction, she merely manages to be a wandering pillock.

      Vimes is a fictional person, which probably helps, but I can’t say I am persuaded this little fool lives in the real world either…..

  39. There’s also the idea that some content needs to be labeled as potential hate speech. Doing a blog post on Charlie Hebdo/The Sum of All Fears yesterday, I ran across the Patriot-News web site’s January Hebdo cover story. It includes the new cover; it also prefaces the article with: “READER WARNING: This piece includes a rendering of the Prophet Mohammed that some might find offiensive.”

    I’m not sure what to do with a newspaper not thinking enough about the first line in their article to get the spelling right. I am thinking it might be a good new word for officiously offensive.

  41. I went out and read the original article – well what I could stomach.

    Some of my thoughts:

    “Protecting vulnerable minorities from hate speech…”

    So it’s perfectly acceptable for a “minority” to use this hate-speech against one of the so called majority?

    “(a) Shall declare an offence punishable by law all dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race or group of persons of another colour or ethnic origin, and also the provision of any assistance to racist activities, including the financing thereof;

    (b) Shall declare illegal and prohibit organizations, and also organized and all other propaganda activities, which promote and incite racial discrimination, and shall recognize participation in such organizations or activities as an offence punishable by law;”

    And this is to be applied to groups like the Black Panthers and La Raza, right?

    “E. S. ‘Nigger’ Brown Stand” (named in honor of 1920s rugby league player Edward Stanley Brown) at a Toowoomba sports field was racially offensive”

    Meanwhile you ignore a football team called Redskins.

    “The US allows people to advocate violence, murder, terrorism, and genocide …”

    You forgot to mention half the middle east.

    “Censorship in all of its forms is something that must always be fiercely opposed.”

    And you just contradicted yourself.

    “Speech that offends, insults, demeans, threatens, disrespects, incites hatred or violence…”

    So, the next time a black person calls me a peckerwood, I can charge them with Hate Speech? That is a racially charged word and it offends me.

    “people are automatically declared guilty of hate speech and other hate crimes unless they can absolutely prove their innocence beyond any reasonable doubt.”

    Wow. Guilty until proven innocent. How enlightened.

    “2.The spreading of misinformation, including climate change denial, denial of war crimes and genocides (especially Holocaust denial), conspiracy theories, anti-vaccine propaganda, and general nonsense.”

    So, you are openly advocating against open discussion of issues? Hello? You’re saying “You MUST believe the way the Government wants you to believe or we will penalize you. What was that you said about Censorship?

    “4.Insulting, disrespectful, and/or offensive speech in general and speech that violates the dignity of people. This would include, for example, jokes about tragedies along with insults and derogatory/disrespectful comments about any person, group, place, or thing.”

    Ha. That puts over half the comedians in the country out of work.

    “9.Speech that undermines the authority of the state and/or interferes with the state’s ability to properly function and do its job. This would also include speech that undermines the authority of the United Nations and/or international law.”

    DING DING. We have a winner here. Make it illegal to question the Government. Something Big Brother would LOVE.

    “11.Speech that promotes unacceptable ideas, such as un-democratic ideologies and ideologies that oppose freedom.”

    Ha. You mean like section 9?

    ‘15.Speech which constitutes microaggressions against vulnerable minorities.”

    Again with the “vulnerable minorities”. So I take it that you’re okay with targeting the so-called majority?

    “Anyone guilty of hate speech – which should carry criminal penalties of 25 years to life – should be sent to special prisons designed to re-educate…”

    Are you serious? Prisons to ReEducate people to the correct “Good Speak”? Imprison someone for daring to think differently?

    “laws have universal support, from the left-wing to the center to the right-wing to libertarians…”

    I’m calling this an out right Lie. Libertarians are OPPOSED to this kind of Federal intrusion into our lives.

    “Bigotry has absolutely no place in a society supposedly built on tolerance, respect, diversity, dignity, multiculturalism, and human rights.”

    One of the few correct statements you make – however, it needs to be seen and done ACROSS THE BOARD, not just for the “vulnerable minorities”. Otherwise you are showing yourself to be a Hypocrite.

    1. About “Make it illegal to question the Government. Something Big Brother would LOVE.” I’m currently reading the Edward R. Murrow biography, His Life and Times; the fairness doctrine actually made this not illegal but actionable, in the sense that a government agency decided that Murrow had been unfair, and so demanded—and received—equal time. The biographer called the agency’s response “a thirty-minute election-year plug.”

      Regarding “protecting vulnerable minorities”, it reminds me of something I read recently in Samuel G. Freedman’s Letters to a Young Journalist that “It sounds admirable to ‘speak truth to power,’ unless you think of the phrase’s implication that you are supposed to tell lies, presumably comforting ones, to the powerless.”

      1. The most loving and helpful thing you can do for most vulnerable minorities is to teach & empower them to be less vulnerable… not to comfort them in their vulnerability.

    2. Again with the “vulnerable minorities”. So I take it that you’re okay with targeting the so-called majority?

      Also “invulnerable minorities.” Which must be those she wants to target.

      1. Me for instance: Latin, liberal arts degree, artist, libertarian. Thank heavens my undies are made of asbestos and I can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

  43. There is only one possible answer here: She is GOD. She can see into our hearts and know what we REALLY mean when we write or say something, and has the ultimate power to pass judgment on it. SHE above all men has the authority and power to define what hate speech is or isn’t.

  44. re:”Human rights …she thinks it means humans have a right not to be offended.” eh, not so much. The right of freedom of movement may include the right to move away from or avert our eyes from that which offends us; but for most of us, the right to be told / to hear the truth is usually more pertinent.

  45. I can’t help but get a mental picture of some fat law enforcement type on a back road in the middle of nowhere saying, “That there is hate speech, and we don’t cotton to that in these parts.”
    The potential for abuse is so great that the mind boggles.

    1. Mocking rednecks, practically the last safe target?

      For no particular reason here’s another ethnic joke. How does a pilot with Lot discover he’s landed with the gear up? Takes full power to taxi.

      Knew a couple of good old boys whose every other word was ain’t – when they caught a whiff of anti-redneck sentiment – in normal conversation they knew Hebrew and koine Greek as well as modern languages. Nothing like learning a highly inflected language to teach English to an American.

      1. My point was that such laws could be abused at the highest and lowest levels of government.

      2. “How does a pilot with Lot discover he’s landed with the gear up? Takes full power to taxi.”

        I freely confess to being thick as a stack of bricks, but I don’t get it.

        1. LOT. Polish National Airlines. It’s an offensive ethnic joke!

          But you do know why LOT pilots keep viagra in the cockpit locker, don’t you?

          They heard it helps things stay up.

  46. It was just pointed out to me me how much this woman sounds like Professor Umbrage from Harry Potter.
    I hated her more than I hated Voldemort!

        1. I think that’s because she’s too familiar. Voldemort is the quentessential evil-for-evil’s sake villain. There’s some attempt at giving him motivation, but it’s superficial. We aren’t disturbed by that; he’s a blatant trope. The power-hungry bureaucrat with a giant chip on her shoulder? We’ve met her, most of us. Malicious administrators, vindictive bean-counters, self-appointed aristocrats, agents of the Deep State… we live with those nightmares in the real world.

          1. I’ve always seen Voldemort as a thinly veiled Hitler. Supremacy of a certain type, despite not matching that type himself, seeks to rid the world of the “inferior” race, etc.

            Despite the fact that Hitler existed, he’s isolated. He’s a once in an eon kind of evil.

            Delores Umbridge? She’s the worst kind of evil. She’s the kid that believes order should be achieved at all costs, that the ends justifies the means so long as the means is order, and authority should be worshipped simply because it’s authority.

            Yes, Delores Umbridge terrifies me. Voldemort? Not so much.

          2. Apparently Rowling said just the other day that Umbridge was inspired by the Bush administration.

            /facepalm

          3. Some of us have met those who are evil for the sake of evil. There are no words to fully, directly describe it. And most people who have not seen it don’t believe in it more than as an archetype or symbol. Which makes portraying it difficult.

      2. Say it with me boys and girls…

        “Rowling wanted you to hate that character. If you hate her THAT much, she’s done her job right.”

        I get the same way about Oppum from Saving Private Ryan. That was one hell of a script/actor too.

        1. My mother hated Order of the Phoenix. After decades of teaching high school chemistry, she had had enough of that attitude, thank you.

          A compliment to Rowling, at that.

    2. I have to think that Rowling must have had to deal with an Umbridge type of bureaucrat in her travels before she hit the big time. I know I have. There those types who are relentless and determined over the most petty of issues. They get literally sexual pleasure from “getting” people. Truly terrifying.

      1. I have to think that Rowling must have had to deal with an Umbridge type of bureaucrat in her travels before she hit the big time.

        I think that’s a large part of the reason why Umbridge hate is so visceral. Lots of people have had to deal with the Umbridge types (including me). Voldemort? Not so much. His evil is more academic, more theoretical, to most people. Umbridge’s is all too real.

      2. Knowing about that type was what convinced me that the answer to the Gay Marriage problemwasn’t “civil unions”. You just KNOW that no matter how clearly the law says that civil unions are legally the same as marriage, some bureaucrat would pick a nit, not because he was a homophobe but purely for the pleasure of being a clenched sphincter.

        1. There is no gay marriage problem if you simply define marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. You know, the way it was in the United States from before 1776 until just recently.

          Didn’t need ten pages of legalese describing the duties and obligations of marriage. Everyone knew what they were, and held those that openly violated the compact in disdain.

          1. I hear your argument, but “marriage” has often been other things, depending on time and culture. Often it has been a great deal more about joining two clans or dynasties than two people. For me, it seems that I cannot berate Gays for living a dissolute lifestyle of sexual excess if I am not willing to offer them an alternative. Also, I see no reason why a Gay person who wishes to live monogamously should not be affored legal protection against a partner that claims to, but lies.

            1. How many clan alliances were held together by childless unions? And why should the modern taxpayer be expected to subsidize, via legally enforced benefits and privileges, the sex lives of people who aren’t producing the next generation of society?

              I’d rather see all laws relating to marriage repealed than see the institution further undermined. Once you remove the sexual requirement of marriage, that it be between a man and a woman (regardless of their respective sexual orientations), how do you argue against further redefinitions? Should we extend legal privileges to incestuous couples? Polygamous groups? Age of consent varies from place to place and culture to culture too…

              If marriage isn’t about producing and raising children then it’s just adult cohabitation, and there’s no reason for the State to recognize, promote, or protect it.

              1. How many alliances were cemented by childless unions? Plenty. And many were broken to flinders by the behavior of the children of the marriage that was supposed to cement the union. As for your next question, could it not be as reasonably asked about male-female unions of couples who have chosen to be childless?

                How about; marriage is about fostering stable relationships? That is as true of clan marriages, childless mariages, and same-sex marriages as it is of marriages that produce offspring. A stable partnership allows each partner to focus on goals other than tonight’s session of hide-the-salami (or whatever). It is my impression that people in stable relationships produce more, accomplish more, etc.

                Unless what you want is bad poetry.

                Ideally, I would have the State get the hell out of the marriage business, but I think that’s an unreasonable goal for anything but an extreme long term. The State has always had its grubby finger in that pie, and disentangling several thousand years of legal precident is probably as thankless a task as spelling reform.

                I think that what is commonly thought of as “the Gay lifestyle” is one of wretched excess. I also know Gays who live far more quietly. I wish to encourage the latter and discourage the former.

                    2. Ok, that’s understandable. Magic elf-boxes of all types confuse me too. I was wondering what I could have said to lead you to think my name was Christopher (it isn’t).

                2. How many alliances were cemented by childless unions? Plenty.

                  And those unions were *expected* to be childless? Was that the norm, or an exception driven by political expediency? Which outcome would the respective groups have preferred?

                  As for your next question, could it not be as reasonably asked about male-female unions of couples who have chosen to be childless?

                  Yes, given that we’ve divorced sex from parenthood to a much greater extent than any society before us, and divorced parenthood from marriage, then there’s no justification for legally treating married couples without children as any better or more deserving of taxpayer-funded benefits than un-married couples or non-romantically-involved roommates.

                  1. Except that such unions can produce children. Unpredictably. Even a medical certificate that both spouses are sterile and an earnest statement from both that they do not want children is insufficient proof that they are not going to have children.

                    Marriage provides a framework in which such little surprises are taken care of.

                    1. And once such a surprise comes along, society has a good reason to care about the continued stability of the relationship (yes, I’m arguing “for the children”…sometimes that’s a legitimate argument).

                      Prior to the children though, there’s no *functional* difference, from a societal perspective, between a married couple and a pair of long-term roommates.

                    3. But you don’t know whether it’s before the children. Even the couple don’t know until the woman thinks to take a pregnancy test.

                    4. But you don’t know whether it’s before the children.

                      I can’t parse this sentence, so I can’t respond to it. If you’re saying that you don’t know whether a relationship will be procreative before the woman becomes pregnant, well sure. That’s why, were I King, all marriages would be treated as purely provisional and of no legal significance until such time as they had produced offspring. At *that* point, the legal privileges would kick in, and divorce would become much more difficult.

                      Given that I’m not King, and the current attitude of too much of our society is that marriage has no intrinsic connection with parenthood, I see no reason why the State should recognize marriage at all. Let it devolve into a purely private, contractual relationship with no more legal significance than a business partnership. In that scenario the whole “gay marriage” thing becomes a non-issue.

                    5. No, I’m saying you don’t know whether the couple has procreated RIGHT NOW. Because you don’t know whether she’s pregnant, anymore than they do.

                    6. I’m not following your point. Once the female partner to the relationship has borne a child, then you know that the couple has procreated (assuming it was the male partner’s child [why yes, I do support mandatory paternity testing at birth!]), and thus the marriage has been fully consummated.

                  1. Both of which should arguably be done even if all you are doing is treating marriage as a contract.

                2. Were that the case then we wouldn’t have no-fault divorce laws, and we would have penalties for dissolving marriages. The trend during my lifetime has been to make marriage less and less binding, less stable, and less socially useful. I don’t see re-defining one of the fundamental characteristics of the institution, and thus paving the way for further re-definitions, to be likely to promote stability.

                    1. I’m not at all sure of that. In my divorce there was no infidelity, no physical abuse, what mental cruelty there was was directed toward the male and incredibly difficult to prove…

                      And if I couldn’t have ended my marriage I may very well have ended my life. The thought did cross my mind. I fail to see where that would have made society better.

                    2. As I said, there are some cases that are real and very difficult, but the AVAILABILITY of no fault divorce means people enter marriage in a different frame of mind. For instance, I think Dan and I are among the very few people our age in our first marriage. Most people have a “practice” marriage in their twenties.

            2. Joining the clans or dynasties involved joining two people to create a common blood tie. And two people thusly married were expected to behave as any other married couple. Marriage was marriage, regardless of reasoning behind it.

              And if you look at how the avetrage gay male couple treats marriage, it does not stop their dissolute lifestyle of sexual excess. Their marriages are, for the most part, as the hippie argument goes, just a piece of paper.

              As far as your other argument, “I see no reason why a Gay person who wishes to live monogamously should not be affored legal protection against a partner that claims to, but lies.”, umm… have you been paying attention to the thousands of men paying child support for other men’s children that their wife had? There is no legal protection for a man in marriage anymore, just women. That needs to be fixed, but that’s a whole different discussion.

              Up earlier in the thread “Actually, it’s toddler. “Mommy, he mean! Waaaaah!”” If you read all the legal “reasoning” in support of SSM, not one bit of it reliess on any argument that doesn’t devolve on examination into, “Mommy! It’s not fair! I can’t do what I want!”That’s it. It’s not fair that gays should have to follow the rules of society. The rules need to be changed so they can be happy. I might be a little supportive of SSM if I also weren’t aware of some history behind it. It was orignally deployed not to strengthen marriage, but to destroy the whole concept or marriage. Baby steps. First you redefine, then you eliminate.

              1. no. It actually wasn’t. You’re perhaps not versed in the history of the “gay movement” as a Marxist movement. I am, because I have gay, libertarian friends. The whole idea was to REJECT marriage. Let’s face it, in that respect, we — the decent people — won. Gay people want the bourgeois virtues.
                I also have no clue how many gay marriages/relationships you know. Many out of hollywood? Normal gay people don’t think it’s a Hippie thing. No, seriously. Males still probably (probably) have a higher rate of infertility because males, but the ones I know personally try really hard. And mostly are decent people. Don’t be deceived by the remains of the Marxist gays propaganda on “smash monogamy.” Right now their greatest success is college kids of all orientations.

                1. Actually, I deliberately didn’t mention the Communist angle. The American middle class didn’t buy into the whole free love marriage is obsolete thing. The people now abandoning marriage are the lower economic class- and that is caused by the government being Daddy and sending home the bacon, because Congess decided that single mothers were the same as widows and changed aid to widows and orphans to aid for families with dependent children. And Moynihan was proved correct- you get more of what you subsidize.

                  Since marriage wasn’t rejected- it needed to be subverted. It’s necessary to destabilize society so the revolutionaries can take over. And from that, the idea of SSM took hold. Interesting to note. Prior to the first court ruling legalizing same sex marriage, there wasn’t a single state law on the books banning it. It’s not necessary to ban something that doesn’t, by definition, exist. The definition of marriage had to be changed to bring it about.

                  One of the stated goals of revolutionaries throughout history has been to eliminate marriage. Upon taking power, they have never eliminated it. The French revolution did take the power of marriage away from the Church and gave it to the state. And on a related side note, cult leaders almost always tightly control marriage amongst their followers, and take the women they want for themselves. Same idea writ small. They don’t want to control everyone, just enough to keep themselves satiated.

                  I know a few gay couples. Not many. People with different lifestyles tend to move near others of their kind. And gays seem to congregate in cities with nightlife, not in the middle of nowhere. OTOH, I’ll wager I know a lot more Mennonite and Amish then most here, because they move to the middle of nowhere to be with folks like themselves.

              2. And if you look at how the avetrage gay male couple treats marriage, it does not stop their dissolute lifestyle of sexual excess. Their marriages are, for the most part, as the hippie argument goes, just a piece of paper.

                Citation, please.

                …not one bit of it reliess on any argument that doesn’t devolve on examination into, “Mommy! It’s not fair! I can’t do what I want!”

                What legal arguments are you reading? Because I’ve read a number of compelling arguments having to do with access to common legal assumptions afforded married couples.

                I’ve also read some compelling arguments against gay marriage, many of them here. This was not one of those.

                1. The “open marriage” thing isn’t exactly hard to find– even the San Fran Gay Couples Study had 50% of the couples they followed had sex with someone besides their partner, with the partner’s knowledge and approval. The argument is that it makes the relationships last longer. (New York Times has been using that argument to attack monogamous relationships in general since at least 2010.)

                  For the “not fair,” possibly he was reading the same ones that were being made up here in Washington– which did, indeed, boil down to “your marriage gets tax breaks, mine doesn’t! NOT FAIR!”

                  1. Oh, I’ve seen the idiotic arguments. There’s huge swaths of activist argument built of gossamer on shifting sands, the better to shift the goals. They ought be denounced and mocked.

                    But they shouldn’t be assumed to be the total of the argument.

                    As to open marriage, 50% didn’t.

                    Humans are — human. I prefer to take them individually. And I dislike smears.

                    1. If you were familiar with it, why did you demand a citation?

                      It is not a smear to point out that even in a situation where only a lunatic would expect no agenda in what couples were selected, half of them were, indeed, shams. You won’t get that high of a rate even if you started sampling “sailors at horrible stations who really, really want to live off base.” Hell, you won’t even get that high of a rate of cheating on ship….

                      Humans are — human. I prefer to take them individually. And I dislike smears.

                      If you can’t stand people looking at behavior of groups, then avoiding it is on you. Statements of patterns do not obligate you to stop treating humans as humans, nor do they mean that anybody else is not doing so.

                    2. The specific points were “average gay male” when I’ve seen no data comprehensive enough to illuminate the average and “all the legal…not one bit” which is demonstrably false. At least, from my perspective of what constitutes “Mommy! It’s not fair! I can’t do what I want!”

                      Stating my preference is not saying I can’t stand something. It’s simply a reflection of my dislike for casting aspersions on a group in pursuit of an ideological point.

                      And an indication that I try to stand for those so attacked.

                      I’ve made no claims that anyone has failed to treat humans as human, merely that people often appear to prefer to lump them into groups.

                      Personally, I find groups such as “gays” or “whites” or “millennials” to be of little utility in talking about people. They are very narrow ideas from which to explore.

                      And now I think I’m going to step away, have a grand evening.

                2. Find me one of those compelling arguments and link it. I’lll be more then happy to deconstruct it for you down to the basics, waah waah it’s not fair. If SSM were actually unconstitutional, it wouldn’t take pages and pages of legal reasoning to find it so. Anytime a decision cannot be summarized in one paragraph, you can be certain that the opposite of the decision is what actually is true. The Constitution is not a difficult hard to decipher document.

                  1. At this point — I’ve registered my objections. This bids fair to be an acrimonious discussion with flaring tempers and I would like to avoid it.

                    So, I’m for bed. Good night.

              3. By the same token, the vast majority of the arguments I’ve read against same sex marriages boil down to “my religion objects” and “Gays are icky!”.

                Now, pretty much every aspect of the Politically Contrived Gay Culture ™ affects me like fingernails on a blackboard. But that isn’t a legitimate argument against recognizing same-sex partnerships. It may be that all Gay marriages will be as sacrosanct and mutually respectful as a Typical Hollywood marriage (span measured in National Enquirer headlines), in which case a lot of the Gay “we’re just like you” case will have self-destructed.

                I think that a great deal of the “Gays are Just Plain Folks” narrative out of the LIRPs is so much bushwa, but that doesn’t mean that I want them back in the closet. I want Gays considered so normal that appeals to treat them as special case victims are met with “whatever for?”.

                1. The really interesting thing is that the youngest generation — say my sons’ — is so… bourgeois. They tend to partner early, stay together, etc. At least the ones I know. BUT they’re still liberal because “discrimination.” DO let’s remove that.

            3. Yep. that is exactly the same thing I feel. I also feel gay men, especially, need the moderation of having sworn to love and honor and be faithful before their nearest and dearest. Men are more promiscuous than women. we need moderating influences or we can’t complain about what they do and how they live.

  48. “Jim McCoy | January 15, 2015 at 9:30 am | Reply
    Thank you. This made my day. As a Christian, I’ve gotten sick of listening to the negative attitudes of many toward my religion. I once stood in St. John’s Hospital here in Detroit and listened to a Muslim man talk about how the depiction of Jesus was offensive. In a hospital owned and operated by the ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. It’s such a nice change to hear someone who is not of my religion not vilify it.” Cut him some slack, Jim–he couldn’t find a Muslim hospital!

    2. Hmmm… I’m not sure why. We, here in Detroit, have the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the Middle East, as well as a large community of immigrants from Northern Africa. Both have large percentages of Muslims included in their make-up…

      Hmm… Do you suppose it could be differences in their reli…

      NAH

      1. I wouldn’t peg it to religion, per se. Ethnic groups in America seem to go through phases, as they intergrate, and the “building charitable institutions” phase is a late one. One COULD blame the Muslim charities from outside that are more interested in building Mosques, but to be fair the Catholic Church was a lot more interested in building Catherdrals than Hospitals until later in that cycyle.

        But Mr. Moslem does need to be reminded that beggars should not be obnoxious choosers.

        1. Did a google search on Muslim Hospitals. And sites fall all ever one another describinbg how Islam started modern hospitals. Yeah, right. Not, however, not a single actual Islamic hospital listed. Search Catholic Hospitals and it’s an altogether different story. And hurt or injured Palestinians go to Jewish hospitals in Israel to get fixed up. And sometimes return later to blow them up. Never heard of ANYONE travelling to sharialand for treatment of anything.

          Kind of hard to run a hospital properly when women aren’t allowed medical training and women needing treatment can be executed for adultery if they’re in a room with males they’re not related to, even if they’re all medical professionals..

          1. I did actually find a couple of useful statements.

            Their first example is a leper colony. Letting them live but keeping them separate was a very new idea, you see….. (*carefully does not look towards Israel or anything else Jewish*)

            Also interesting, supposedly they were the first to establish hospitals, because of a “strong central government.”

            Has anybody told the ancient Greeks, like Hippocrates? Or Julian the Apostate? (Started tax-funded hospitals because Those Dang Christians were getting too much PR.)

            For love of Pete, don’t tell the Irish– we don’t need anybody defending the honor of Princess Macha of 300 BC and her house of sorrow.

        2. One COULD blame the Muslim charities from outside that are more interested in building Mosques, but to be fair the Catholic Church was a lot more interested in building Catherdrals than Hospitals until later in that cycyle.

          I of course had to go check that out, it was just too interesting!

          It’s not accurate– because of the whole Jesus-ordering-to-care-for-the-sick thing, we’ve got mentions them being around back when Constantine was in power (not bad since that would mean they were going during active persecution) and even folks who disagree on that record an active program of hospitals, because we’ve got letters from a guy who gained power in 361 who was setting up a gov’t program specifically to be a counter to them, because those crazy Christians cared for Pagans as well as Christians.

          I’m deliberately not counting any healing done via supernatural means, even if I now have a mental image of the guys who brought the lame man in to Jesus, through the roof, on a pallet, doing ambulance sounds with their mouths…..

          Far back as there’s records, the Christians were freaky for extending hospitality to everybody, not just their own. (It’s like they had a story about a good Samaritan or something…..) If we’re going to allow “place where those in need of medical help could go to get it,” then the homes of wealthy Christians and the bishops’ houses were hospitals– even refereed to by the same word the Romans used for places where you get medical care 100 years BC.

          Random neat thing: the Church didn’t actually build the first cathedral. Constantine did.
          It’s called St. John Lateran, and there’s actually some argument on if he actually built it or just did a remodel, because it was in use so fast after the earliest possible date it could have been gifted.

          1. When did the Catholic Church start funding hospital in the U.S.? As compared to when the Catholic Church built churches here? What I was saying about ethnic groups was regarding their arrival in the U.S. In large numbers, and when after that they went in for large charitable projects.

              2. I dislike Islam. But I also dislike and distrust the tendency which I see throughout American history to have a cow, breach presentation, about how each successive wave of immigants aren’t adapting, aren’t contributing, etc.. The remarks I run into (not here) regarding hispanic illegals sound an awful lot like a lot of twadle thatwas said of the Irish, once upon a time. Amd BECAUSE I dislike Islam, I feel like being a little cautious about what I believe.

                I’m prepared to think that there are few to no Muslim hospitals in the U.S. because that isn’t where that wave of immigration is in terms of integration. Now, maybe because of various other factors, it never will be. And I certainly don’t like tye fostering of radical Mosques. But I would have had scant patience with radical Irish nutcases (and there were some).

                But you are right, and the Catholic example was badly though out.

                1. There are few to no Muslim hospitals anywhere. There are no Muslim hospitals listed in Saudi Arabia. Private for profit hospitals, and government run. No Religious hospitals at all. Curiously enough, there is a German Hospital Group in Saudi Arabia. When you search Islamic or Muslim hospital in Iran you get- Iran’s Jewish Hospital. But no hits for Islamic religions run hospitals. Government run and private.

                  My search for a hospital identified as run by an Islamic religious group rather than a government in a Muslim country, or anywhere else, has thus far been unsuccessful. Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant are easy to find. Haven’t looked for Buddhist or others. The only LDS hospital I found was in Salt Lake City- but there is one.

                2. America always “having a cow” about immigration? Are you sure?
                  Just one example: Thomas Sowell, in more than one of his books that touch on immigration, notes that Irish immigrants really were a problem: Drunkenness and rowdiness including such charming behaviors as roaming public parks looking for fights with German families out for a nice quiet Sunday picnic. At one time the South Side Irish neighborhood in Chicago was so rowdy that on a Saturday night street car drivers would close the doors upon entering the neighborhood and drive non-stop until they has left it behind.
                  His book “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” has lots of material to give apoplexy to liberals.

                3. *shrug* I looked it up because it sounded really interesting, honestly.

                  Now I know a lot more than I thought– and to be honest, your impression is probably a result of an anti-Catholic frenzy that happened in the UK after they got rid of a lot of their anti-Catholic laws. It’s strong enough that we had an entire class on how there have been Catholics in the US from the start…. (Only one of the signers, he was from Maryland, but being from California and thus knowing about the Spanish AND the pre-revolution French, I was kind of confused it needed to be stated. Yeah, I’m slow at times.)

                  1. IIRC Maryland was founded as a Catholic colony but was later taken over by the Crown.

                    There was a period prior to the ARW when the descendents of the founders couldn’t serve in Maryland’s government because they were Catholic and you had to be Church of England to serve in Maryland’s government.

                    2. IIRC some of the states had established religions at the time the Constitution was written.

                      Part of the reason for the non-establishment clause was to prevent a Federal established religion that might cause problems for the state established religions.

                      Mind you, the various states disestablished their state churches within a few years after the Constitution was ratified.

                      Don’t remember the exact dates and states involved but the disestablishment was done by the state legislatures not by the courts, Federal or otherwise.

                    3. I suppose those who didn’t want the states to give up their state religions were the antidisestablishmentarianists.

                      Oooh! With a triple word score!

            3. Other kind of geeky note, may be result of dental work, read only if interested in this kind of stuff:

              the “Catholic Church”–if by that you mean a single financial organization that’s headed at the Vatican— hardly ever funds stuff directly. That’s what the local Bishop is for, and only in poorly written stories is he getting a morning briefing from the Pope’s Secretary on what he’s going to be doing that day.

              Sub-groups of the Catholic Church– parishes, various religious orders (or their local sub-group)– think of them as being like franchises, they do a lot of stuff.

              When you add in lay activities, it gets really complicated– the way that every “estimate of the Church’s worth” goes, the local St. Vincent d’Paul’s food pantry would be part of their “worth.” (example; warning, do NOT trust their history too much, they’re not very accurate on at very least the 4th crusade. It’s actually a kind of cool story, in the holy-cow-what-a-mess style. Short version: guys were going to be Crusaders. Over-ordered boats, couldn’t pay, started being mercenaries, totally ignored the Pope the whole time. “Gold, money and jewels” were very unlikely to be flowing into that same Pope, although I’m sure a lot some of the guys felt guilty later and did the traditional give-it-away thing.)

              Banshee can probably explain it a lot better than me, but “The Church” being a single body is definitely a spiritual statement, not one of organization.
              There’s some dry humor to be found in some of the back-and-forth that goes on, because all the members of the Church– even the Lay People!– have some authority/rights/dignity/pull, and there’s a ton of different areas for different subjects, and it takes a blessed miracle to get enough folks to agree on anything to get things done.

  49. She does not limit herself:

    “The failure to ban hate speech is not the only area where the US falls far behind other countries in terms of basic human rights. The US still has yet to ban gun ownership, still has yet to enact universal healthcare, still has yet to enact free higher education, still has yet to enact the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and still has yet to set up any kind of federal Human Rights Commission, among many other things. “

    2. Her existence is hate speech. The United States also does not protect the basic and fundamental human right of not having to share a planet with her.

  50. So… I found Ms. Cohen’s article in a roundabout way, the actual article, undiluted, unfiltered, and… I’m just shaking my head. I would respond on her article, but she’s already getting such an enthusiastic response, that my response is unneeded.

    Also, in the face of such rambling incoherence, I no longer trust my own ability to form rational argument. I’m afraid that too much exposure to the rats in her head may have resulted in my own infestation. (Not unlike Agent Smith talking to Morpheus and complaining about the smell, but in a slightly less dystopic universe and without any handcuffing to chairs involved.)

    Meanwhile, so many baseless and lazy assertions with zero evidence or argument. So many “no true Scotsman” fallacies. SO MUCH FEELZ!

    This is all I can think to do in the face of such overwhelming lack of self-awareness, rationality, logic, coherence, argument, proof, reason, and the ability to discern the difference between saying something about someone and pulling out a gun and blasting them in the head. (Because it really was Charlie Hebdo’s fault, you know, inciting violence against minorities with their hateful, hateful cartoons…)

  51. Smart woman. The smell of singed hair is going to be around here for days, after I was foolish enough to follow the link.

  52. I read her people like her and don ‘t feel so bad about my own rambling missives and ability to communicate in the written word.

    🙂

  54. Moved down here because it’s not exactly a reply, it’s more of an observation:

    yes, I’m arguing “for the children”…sometimes that’s a legitimate argument

    One of the biggest problems I have with libprogs is that most of the arguments they steal are legitimate, and powerful.

    That’s why they steal them. They then abuse them horribly for bad purposes, and hurt the legitimate uses of the arguments.

  55. I’m going to make this a top-level comment because it’s answering a whole controversy.

    Look, folks, this really is simple: marriage is BOTH a civil contract, and (to those who believe in religious Sacraments) a Sacrament.

    Since when have we thought it was a good idea to let the State determine who receives *any* Sacrament?

    And since when have we let a particular religion decide who can enter into a civil contract?

    1. Problem with that argument: being both does not mean that all cases are both at the same time.

      Examples range from the lesbian couple I grew up near who got married in their church, to those crazy “Mormon” splinter-groups that have one legal wife and a bunch of religious ones.

      At the same time, no religious group got to kbosh a couple that was being married by a judge. My science teacher even got himself certified as able to do weddings back in the 70s when there was some tax loophole for it.

      The gov’t has an interest in recognizing those marriages which result in children, and because simplicity is good and we don’t know know half of what we think we do, that means male/female.
      Religions have their own reasons for recognizing or not recognizing marriages.

    2. “And since when have we let a particular religion decide who can enter into a civil contract?”

      The problem, of course, is when they want their “religion” to be able to force people into civil contracts, like say, cake baking.

    3. Please name a religion that supported SSM prior to the modern era.

      I’m not getting into the argument concerning “SSM is a good idea” but I get extremely annoyed when pro-SSM folks get into the idea of “opposition to SSM is the evil religious people forcing their religion onto others”.

      In the past, marriage was understood to be between man and woman (sometimes multiple woman married to a man and sometimes one woman married to several men).

      You want to change the definition, fine but don’t play the game of “only religious fanatics oppose SSM”.

      1. IIRC; Up until the 11 or 12 hundreds The Church didn’t want anything to do marriage as they thought The Church’s purview was mans relations with G-d, not mans relationship between his other human beings.

        http://www.jeffgoode.com/politicalsatire/traditionalmarriage.htm

        What I feel what should be the most important consideration as to whether or not people should get married is do they love and respect each other and want to build a life together irrespective of what is or is not between their legs.

        “In the past, marriage was understood to be between man and woman (sometimes multiple woman married to a man and sometimes one woman married to several men).

        You want to change the definition, fine but don’t play the game of “only religious fanatics oppose SSM”.”

        The first part of that is a simplistic understand of what past cultures understood marriage to be.

        As to the second only people I know that want to impose a definition of what marriage is are religious and those that want to save the family and do not think SS couple can have stable relationships… like BG marriages are doing so hot. What is the divorce rate like.

        I’m of the same view as Harry Dresden and how he defines “Family.”

        “I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching–they are your family.”

        1. Or you just “assume” that the people who have doubts about SSM are religious people.

          Of course, I noticed that you didn’t give me an example of a religion that supported SSM before it became The Big Thing To Support.

          More and more I see SSM as another reason for bigots to hate religious people.

          1. More and more I see SSM as another reason for bigots to hate religious people.

            Or anyone else who disagrees.

          2. Paul,

            What I said, “As to the second only people I know that want to impose a definition of what marriage is are religious and those that want to save the family and do not think SS couple can have stable relationships…”

            Wasn’t assuming anything of the sort.

            And you say the last sentence as if religious people can not be bigoted towards gay people.

            I agree with you to a point as I see some, not all, on both side using this issue and the government to push the other side around.

            I am perfectly on board with religion not recognizing Gay Marriages. That is a matter of internal doctrine and not made into civil law. Just as I do not want or think it is right for Secular interest to try to force religions to recognize Gay Marriages.

            I believe that gay should have all the same legal protections under civil law as anyone else, and that they should not be trying to force religious institutions to do anything.

            Right now I can get a judge to perform a civil union between me my girlfriend, but change that to boyfriend it some how becomes a problem. This position seems bigoted to me.

            😦

            1. I believe that gay should have all the same legal protections under civil law as anyone else,

              They do have the same legal protections. They’re as free to enter into a sexually exclusive relationship with someone of the opposite sex, who is willing to enter into such a relationship, is not already in such a relationship, is not closely related to them, is not a minor, is not dead, and is human, as anyone else. The fact that they don’t *want* to do so is on them.

              Right now I can get a judge to perform a civil union between me my girlfriend, but change that to boyfriend it some how becomes a problem. This position seems bigoted to me.

              Would it seem as bigoted to you if it was you and your brother? You and your mom? You and your cat?

              You and your girlfriend can start a family, ie have and raise children together. You and your boyfriend can’t. There’s no more bigotry involved than in not recognizing relations between people and their pets.

              1. I’m going to be blunt here. Those are not the same protections. That’s Obamacare level bad. “Every man has the right to have paid abortions.”
                Be your age. You know giving someone the same rights as other people to do the thing that not wanting to do that thing but wanting to do another thing is what makes them different is not equal.
                That’s like saying “You’re perfectly free to own a gun if you shoot yourself afterwards.” It’s bureaucrat-think.

                1. Men do not have the right to have abortions. Women are free to kill a man’s child, and he has no legal recourse. You’re describing an actual case of disparate rights, thus a poor analogy.

                  Just because someone *wants* something, that doesn’t mean that the rest of us should be obligated to provide it, nor that that someone has a “right” to it. Insofar as marriage has a positive social utility it deserves social support. Rewarding non-procreative relationships advances no social benefit, and is thus undeserving of taxpayer-funded benefits.

                  No one is arguing that gays shouldn’t be allowed to live together and share their personal responsibilities. The argument is about whether intrinsically non-procreative relationships should be granted the same level of societal support and benefits as procreative relationships. I’ve known two gay men who married and fathered children on their wives. They exercised their marriage rights. I also know several heterosexual couples who are nominally “married”, but have chosen to abstain from parenthood. To my eyes, that makes their “marriages” shams, on par with Medicare fraud. They’re getting legal recognition and privileges for, essentially, shacking up together, thereby wasting other people’s resources. Societies can only afford to support so much parasitism, but the nature of a parasite is that it grows to consume the host. As we allow more and more deviance and subversion of the foundations of our civilization, the subversive pressures will grow that much greater.

                  On a related note: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/16/daughter-plans-to-marry-long-lost-father/21859547/

                  I’m sure this will be embraced as just another example of “equal rights” to do something that no one else has been allowed to do, and only bigots will be opposed.

              2. Jabrwok,

                Yes, I would call that being bigoted. Look up the definition.

                Because in those situations I feel there is some harm caused amongst the parties. Children are not adults, and often do not get to determine the course of their own life. Pets can not enter into legal contracts and are considered property, just as a chair can not.

                But beyond al of that, I’m not advocating for any of it. I’m advocating that we treat two adults as if they are adults and able to determine the course of their own life, without getting dictated to like they are children.

                1. Bigoted: utterly intolerant of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one’s own.

                  Says nothing about applying equal standards to everyone. Is it bigoted to say that both the rich and then poor are not allowed to sleep on the sidewalk? Are not allowed to steal?

                  What “harm” is being caused by holding gays to the same standards as straights? Is being unable to marry someone whom they want to marry the equivalent of being robbed, raped, murdered, or even punched in the nose? No. Refusal to reward is not “harm” by any reasonable definition. Procreative, long-term, male/female pair bonding (marriage) benefits society. Non-procreative, long-term, same-sex pair bonding benefits only the pair in question. Why should I spend money on something that doesn’t benefit me? Why should I be *forced* to do so?

                  I posted a link to a father/daughter couple who want to get married to one another in response to Mrs. Hoyt’s objection to my comment above. Do you think that outlawing incest is likewise bigoted? That not extending legal recognition to incestuous relationships, when the incestuous are not prohibited from exercising the same rights, with the same restrictions, as everyone else, is bigoted?

                  By that logic, applying *any* restrictions to anything that anyone wants to do is bigoted, at which point the word becomes meaningless.

                  1. And let’s remember that this is happening in New Jersey, which is already saying this is legal. Now, what happens when this loving couple crosses state lines? Will any state they travel to be able to enforce its’ laws against incest? All the SSM arguments and the “logic” of Lawrence say no.

            2. Question: What does “bigoted toward gays” mean?

              Answer: It means whatever the bigoted Lefties want it to mean.

              Just believing that homosexual behavior is sinful equals “hatred of gays” to plenty of assholes.

              1. You know what? I have a friend whose parents now and then remind me he’s sinful. they still love him/help him, and he still adores them. No bigotry there.
                I don’t think gays should force churches to marry them. I also don’t think gay marriage should be a political issue. Both sides need to step off. They’re legal consenting adults? Then fine. Two of them can marry. Do religious people disapprove of it? Then they can preach at them/tell them it’s sinful. No politics.

                1. But Sarah, you know that the politicians won’t let it drop. As long as someone can get votes, they won’t drop it
                  And as long as someone (anyone) can scream “victim”, it won’t be dropped.
                  I’m worried for how politicians will try to punish churches that won’t support SSM. Because someone will try to. It doesn’t matter if its against the law or not, some politician somewhere will try to punish churches.
                  With all the other insanity going on, we can’t deny that it will happen. Revoking the non-profit church status of a religion is only the tip of the iceberg.
                  Refusing to recognize the marriage ceremony of a religion, taxing their properties, collecting back taxes (for who knows how many decades), or other retroactive measures.
                  Someone is going to try, which is part of why so many have drawn a line in the sand.
                  “No politics” would be wonderful as far as I am concerned. But it’s not going to happen.

              2. Paul,

                When only one side in a disagreement get’s to determine what is and is not acceptable, you are not in a discussion; you are in a lecture.

                If a theist takes out billboard extolling religion and that if you don’t have it you should get it. The religious think it’s OK to call into question the beliefs of atheist.

                If an atheist takes out a billboard extolling Atheism and that you don’t need religion and there is no God. You get some like Bill O’Reily saying there is this war on religion and that the other side shouldn’t be allowed to express themselves publicly. Playing at being a victim.

                Sounds familiar, and the only difference is a matter of degree… Don’t get me wrong both side are doing this. Hell it might be the defining characteristic inherent in all ideologies to try to dictate and control the outsider, the other.

                Hmmm…

              3. P.S.

                Paul, the answer to your question is in the definition of the word bigoted. The problem as I see it is that a lot of Religious people only see it as a one ways street being directed against them. Not realizing they do it to.

                It’s the same thing I see in Militant Evangelical Atheists trying to pull down religions.

                1. I think Sarah’s about ready to “shut down” this conversation so all I’ll say is that the “pro-SSMs” bigots appear to pass unchallenged by too many assholes.

                  Of course, right now you seem to be on the side of the people who would arrest anybody how dislikes SSM.

                  1. Paul, Are you for arresting same sex couple that want to get married or have access to the legal protections afforded there of?

                    The only ones advocating for continued criminalization are those advocating against SSM. The only ones under threat of prosecution and arrest are gay and lesbian couples.

                    1. Josh, you are flatly in contradiction of reality, and it’s not even worth responding to you about it because when you are shown that your claims are false, you act like it never happened.

                      Are you trying to pick fights, or are you just unable to argue in good faith on this topic?

                      Honestly, I don’t care either way– being a jerk is one thing, making false claims is another.

                    2. Fuck!!!!!!

                      Foxfier, their are Religious people trying to legally dictate to the non-religious, those that don’t believe as they do, how to live their life. Dictating what they can and can not do in the pursuit of their own happiness. And there only defense is whining about how the other side might turn around and do the same to them.

                      I don’t give a rats ass if you are trying to save my soul or what ever feel good reason you come up with stay out of my bedroom and life and I’ll not dictate to you how to practice your religion or live you life.

                      Deal?

                      P .S. This is not a one sided issue for me as I will and have beat-up on the Militant Atheist and the SSM crowd that want to use this to dictate to the religious how they should be living their and to try to force the religious to perform and recognize their unions.

                    4. What on Earth are you talking about? Refusal to provide taxpayer-funded legal benefits is NOT “criminalization”, “prosecution”, or “arrest”? Where are you getting that from?

        2. Jesus Himself was publicly “involved” with marriage, and I don’t just mean the wine; the very popular essay claiming otherwise was… well, historically ignorant is best possible interpretation. The guy who talks at Ricochet as John of England has removed his exhaustive essay on the topic and is polishing it for formal publication, so I can’t link to that anymore.

          This tract has quotes from the first century showing that not only was the Church “involved,” it was deeply involved:
          http://www.catholic.com/tracts/the-permanence-of-matrimony

          Not really surprising, given that Christians were just another Jewish sect at the time, though a bit whackier than most.

          A search for this will give a bigger history:
          For a long time, undoubtedly, the espousals and the actual nuptials remained distinct ceremonies throughout the greater part of the Western world, and except for the subsequent bringing of the parties before the altar for the celebration of the Mass, the Church seems to have had little directly to do with either function. Nevertheless a negative approval of such ceremonies as containing nothing unbefitting the Christian character may be presumed. Indeed this seems to be required even at the beginning of the second century by the epistle of St. Ignatius to St. Polycarp: “It becometh men and women, when they wed, to marry with the consent of the bishop, that the marriage may be after the Lord and not after concupiscence”. (Cf. Ephesians 5:32, and the Didache 11.) Moreover at Rome, Pope Siricius (A.D. 385), in a letter accepted as genuine by Jaffé-Wattenbach (Regesta, n. 255), speaks clearly of the blessing pronounced by the priest at the ceremony of the betrothal (illa benedictio quam nupturæ sacerdos imponit) where the context seems to make it evident that the actual marriage is not meant. We may believe, though the point is contested, that in some places the Church by degrees came to take a part both in the betrothal and in that “gifta” or handing over of the bride in which our Teutonic forefathers seem to have seen the essence of the nuptial contract. This eventually successful effort of the Church everywhere to bring the solemnization of matrimony more immediately under her influence, is well summed up in the following Anglo-Saxon ordinance: “At the nuptials there shall be a Mass-priest by law who shall with God’s blessing bind their union to all prosperity” (Liebermann, “Gesetze der Angel-Sachsen”, I, 422).

  56. “To my eyes, that makes their “marriages” shams, on par with Medicare fraud. They’re getting legal recognition and privileges for, essentially, shacking up together, thereby wasting other people’s resources. ”

    Now, right there, is an argument too far. My wife and I were unable to have kids for medical reasons. Does that change your thinking?

    The institution of marriage between a man and a woman as the historically best way to raise kids deserves support from society. We should be allowed to advocate for exactly that without being called “bigots” and placed in legal jeopardy, including the legal jeopardy of losing our jobs because we prove a “hostile environment.” However, there’s a huge gap between that and declaring that marriages that can’t produce kids to not be marriages.

    2. Now, right there, is an argument too far. My wife and I were unable to have kids for medical reasons. Does that change your thinking?

      A tragic failure is not an intentional fraud. You went into your marriage wanting, and intending to have, children. The fact that you couldn’t is a shame. But the fact that you couldn’t also means that you can’t merit the legal benefits that exist to foster family formation. Would you say that those benefits should go to childless, unmarried couples? If so, why?

      The couples I was referring to got married with the express intention of not having children. That, to me, makes their marriages fraudulent and undeserving of legal support. I have no doubt that they love one another deeply, and derive a great deal of personal satisfaction from their relationships, but I see no reason why I, or any other taxpayer, should subsidize them. Their love lives benefit the rest of us not a whit.

      It was not my intent to insult your marriage, though I understand how my position can be read that way. Unfortunately, keeping my opinions to myself nowadays means tacit approval of the on-going redefinition of marriage, and I can’t bring myself to do that. I see traditional marriage as foundational to civilization, and we’re in the process of destroying it. I probably won’t see the collapse in my lifetime, and hopefully it’ll be averted altogether, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

      1. Are you familiar with the term “marriage penalty”? If not, you might want to look it up. There are no government benefits I am eligible for because of my income level, and my marital status is an actual disadvantage in the federal tax code (state code isn’t a factor; TX has no income tax).

        1. Exerting moderator privilege to back this one — look, last year we paid in 2/3 of what I made. Think of it as writing two books for Uncle Sam. This put us in actual distress (as y’all know) and we had a discussion about how we could reduce our tax footprint. One way would be to divorce and have Dan take a nominal apartment, and one of the boys as a dependent. Not only would we pay half, I’d be illegible for all sorts of federal aid, including Earned Income Credit.
          Why didn’t we do it? a) we said yes, that’s forever. b) we know many couples who did this “for taxes” and who are now really divorced. It’s easy to slide from “I’m ah ah divorced to ‘why not give in to temptation. After all legally I’m single.'”
          However, the myth of a financial advantage to marriage, except in extremely limited circumstances is just that, a myth.

          1. However, the myth of a financial advantage to marriage, except in extremely limited circumstances is just that, a myth.

            Oddly married couples despite the suggested lack of a financial advantage on average do better financially than single people. Wonder why? Google suggests The Atlantic ran some numbers and surveyed other articles in the popular press. The High Price of Being Single in America Lisa Arnold & Christina Campbell Jan 14 2013, 11:10 AM ET

            I suspect the marriage provides both the reality and the sensation of greater security and so facilitates economic activity by facilitating mobility. There is also the Colonels must marry issue equally seen in academics where Dean’s wife is a recognized role – though fading.

            1. The financial advantage of marriage increases every year the marriage lasts. And starts a year before the wedding, as people start to plan for the future.

              1. Statistically, the best way to avoid/get out of poverty is to finish school, get a job, get married and have kids. In that order.

                You can get a part time job while in school. That’s fine. So long as you finish school. It’s when you try to skip steps, or move “get married” or worse “have kids” up the sequence that you’re screwing up your own financial future.

      2. I thought I closed this topic? I get very tired of the same old tropes being dragged out. Seriously — SERIOUSLY — we’re talking about a tiny minority and no one is going to drag you out and make you marry a same sex partner. You might believe they’re sinful and plain wrong, but what they are is irrelevant to national discourse/culture, UNLESS you give them outsize power by politicizing their private decisions.
        BTW talking about surveys of behavior in marriage of gay people in a city like san fran is by definition specious. It’s like talking about straight marriage in hollywood.
        Also REALLY what can they do to marriage that straights haven’t? If 1 to 2% of the population can destroy marriage it’s gone. That’s probably the proportion of people in creative professions and BROTHER let me tell you about my people. Dan and I are freaks for being monogamous and married to our first (and only) spouse.
        So why isn’t THAT group (often covalent) with gay people a big issue politically? Because it’s hard to isolate them into a “easily identifiable behavior” group. And that means the Marxists can’t get to work using them as a rope a dope to snare the culture.
        It is my considered opinion that if the right just says “it’s a sin, but none of my business” or “I’m a libertarian, whatevs” instead of falling into the straw man role the left created for them, this entire “problem” will just go away.
        Say “you do whatever in the churches that accept you. You can’t violate freedom of religion. The state will recognize unions between two consenting adults who are mentally competent. Now shut up.”

    3. What we need to fight is people who run people out of jobs for WHATEVER reason. It’s not just gay marriage. In my field, if they could, they’d shut my career down for being anti-communist.

      1. Sorry, Sarah, This needs to be said. I need to get this out of my heads.

        But I get mad and sad when our side is for redistribution of wealth and of picking winners and losers.

        The Law Defends Plunder

        But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.

        This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations — and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.

        How to Identify Legal Plunder

        But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

        Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

        The person who profits from this law will complain bitterly, defending his acquired rights. He will claim that the state is obligated to protect and encourage his particular industry; that this procedure enriches the state because the protected industry is thus able to spend more and to pay higher wages to the poor workingmen.

        Do not listen to this sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it.

        – “The Law” Frédéric Bastiat

        Do Gay people not pay taxes why should they be forced to pay for a system they can not participate in. This is creating second class citizens, and is taxation without representation.

        The sophistry of we will not criminalize the act, but criminalize the acceptance of benefits that one doesn’t “qualify” for. And if you do try to claim these benefits, we will call this fraud and put you in jail for that.

        Sorry again, but I need to get this out of my head. Feel free to delete; as, this is after the injunction to not post a response.

  57. Pingback: Freedom of Speech Shouldn’t Be Driven Down Under | MoonMetropolis

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