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talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
sandwichwarrior.livejournal.com) wrote in talkpolitics2013-09-07 06:55 pm
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An open letter from a dinosaur
Dear Progressives,
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
Turn-about being fair play, I figured that I'd write a mirrior of Bean's post But where to start?
A couple months back Johnathan Korman wrote an excellent post on the poles of american politics. In it was the following line ...the correct social order is natural but not effortless — without devotion to the correct social order, conservatives believe we devolve into barbarism.
Do you genuinely believe that if you'd been transported back to fifteenth-century London as a baby, you'd realize all on your own that witch-burning was wrong, slavery was wrong, that every sentient being ought to be in your circle of concern? If so I'd like to know why,because as far as I can tell Homo Sapiens today are no more mentally capable than the Homo Sapiens of 500 years ago. I assert that our current high quality of life has more to do with culture and technology than it does with any inherent superiority to those who came before us. The fact of the matter is that we live in a civil society where, for the most part, people raise their kids to obey the law, pay their taxes, and generally not kill each-other without a damn good reason. It is this state of civility that conservatives seek to conserve.
The majority of these conservation efforts focus on individual and family responsibilities/virtue. They operate on the theory that if you want innovation you need to reward innovation. If you want virtue reward virtue. If you want stable kids reward stable families, because barbarity is never more than a generation or two away. If you want good social order we must reward virtue and punish vice.
It is in this space that intent runs head-long into perceived intent, and I start to turn into my grandad...
Using anfalicious' recent example, I am simply flabbergasted that a "post-gendered society" is even a topic of discussion outside of science fiction. Feminism has moved from arguing that women should be treated equal and have the same rights as men, etc... To that that men and women should be interchangeable. I am expected ignore the fact that the burden of reproduction is carried disproportionately by the female of the species. I am expected to ignore the differences in biology. To ignore the different strengths and weaknesses of both and how they compliment each other. I am expected to be genderless. I am not therefore I am a misogynist.
Global warming is based on computer models that keep failing. Catastrophic predictions are constantly proven wrong and (surprise, surprise) the only solution ever proposed is higher taxes and greater regulatory powers. I suspect that a dog is being wagged therefore I am a "denier".
I don't want to live in a world of "Honor Killings" and medieval torture and I refuse to coddle or kow-tow to those that do therefore I am a Islamiphobe.
I oppose gun control therefore I want children to die.
I support voter ID laws therefore I am a Racist.
Fascist.
Terrorist.
Killer.
I could go on...
These are labels that have been applied to me by my so-called intellectual and moral "betters" in an effort to shut me up.
I am a dinosaur. Hear me roar.
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Of course surface land temperatures records aren't the only things scientists have been using for their work on climate change. It also includes many other factors (e.g. water temperature, measurements of long-wave radiation leaving the Earth (i. e. upward radiation), sea levels, ice, etc.)
And the original premise (the models got it wrong) is well, not true.
(http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/03/27/climate-change-models-predict-remarkably-accurate-results/)
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I think that explains a lot right there. Ingsoc is pleased to announce that warming estimates have risen from from 1.2 degrees Celsius per year to 0.3. ;)
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and don't even get me started on his poetry and non-fiction.
A happy vicar I might have been
Two hundred years ago
To preach upon eternal doom
And watch my walnuts grow;
But born, alas, in an evil time,
I missed that pleasant haven,
For the hair has grown on my upper lip
And the clergy are all clean-shaven.
And later still the times were good,
We were so easy to please,
We rocked our troubled thoughts to sleep
On the bosoms of the trees.
All ignorant we dared to own
The joys we now dissemble;
The greenfinch on the apple bough
Could make my enemies tremble.
But girl’s bellies and apricots,
Roach in a shaded stream,
Horses, ducks in flight at dawn,
All these are a dream.
It is forbidden to dream again;
We maim our joys or hide them:
Horses are made of chromium steel
And little fat men shall ride them.
I am the worm who never turned,
The eunuch without a harem;
Between the priest and the commissar
I walk like Eugene Aram;
And the commissar is telling my fortune
While the radio plays,
But the priest has promised an Austin Seven,
For Duggie always pays.
I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And woke to find it true;
I wasn’t born for an age like this;
Was Smith? Was Jones? Were you?
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