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posted by CoolHand on Monday August 29 2016, @01:42AM   Printer-friendly
from the it-takes-all-kinds dept.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/opinion/sunday/a-confession-of-liberal-intolerance.html?_r=0

WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives. Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us.

O.K., that's a little harsh. But consider George Yancey, a sociologist who is black and evangelical. "Outside of academia I faced more problems as a black," he told me. "But inside academia I face more problems as a Christian, and it is not even close."

I've been thinking about this because on Facebook recently I wondered aloud whether universities stigmatize conservatives and undermine intellectual diversity. The scornful reaction from my fellow liberals proved the point.

"Much of the 'conservative' worldview consists of ideas that are known empirically to be false," said Carmi. "The truth has a liberal slant," wrote Michelle. "Why stop there?" asked Steven. "How about we make faculties more diverse by hiring idiots?"

To me, the conversation illuminated primarily liberal arrogance — the implication that conservatives don't have anything significant to add to the discussion. My Facebook followers have incredible compassion for war victims in South Sudan, for kids who have been trafficked, even for abused chickens, but no obvious empathy for conservative scholars facing discrimination.

The stakes involve not just fairness to conservatives or evangelical Christians, not just whether progressives will be true to their own values, not just the benefits that come from diversity (and diversity of thought is arguably among the most important kinds), but also the quality of education itself. When perspectives are unrepresented in discussions, when some kinds of thinkers aren't at the table, classrooms become echo chambers rather than sounding boards — and we all lose.


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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @05:05AM (#394472)

    I'll readily concede that issues such as gay marriage, abortion etc are religion-based.

    Actually no.

    "Gay marriage" is a bit of a misnomer, as the issue isn't whether gays can marry, but restrictions on partner selection, which can be arbitrary, but is by no means specific to gays (interestingly western society has grown more restrictive towards age in the same time).

    So the question becomes if sexual orientation is sufficient cause to negate restriction, why should any of the others be encumbered as well (incest, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc.)?

    Abortion is simply valuing human life so that there should be an overriding concern in ending it which "my body, my choice" doesn't even come close to.

    The left is fond of painting conservatives with a broad brush of religious doctrine, but the arguments are generally more nuanced than God said so, and frequently don't originate from religion at all.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 29 2016, @08:05AM

    by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday August 29 2016, @08:05AM (#394534) Journal

    Regarding your idiocy conflating gays getting married with pedophilia: the question here is one of harm. This isn't a hard concept, and you're deliberately repeating propaganda you ought to be too smart for.

    My girlfriend and I getting married harms no one. Why is this? Because we are two adults, in our late 20s, with less than 2 years' difference between us, both of sound mind and body. We are doing financial planning, both employed, and neither of us are criminals nor drains on society.

    Now compare this to the pedophile. A child, and indeed a teenager, is not ready for and cannot understand sex or relationships. Minds and bodies both are undeveloped. This is a clear-cut case of harm: children and teenagers CANNOT MEANINGFULLY CONSENT. Worse, if the body is also undeveloped, sex is outright injurious, especially to girls.

    Incest: usually involves a massive power differential and/or blackmail, and prevents people from maturing properly and looking for mates outside the family. See above re: pedophilia. Personally, while it squicks me out, rationally-speaking I am not sure how I could morally condemn, for example, a pair of incestuous sisters or cousins. But even so, it may be better to prevent the entire category to stop the abusive cases, which is going to be nearly all of them anyway.

    Bestiality: Again, animals cannot meaningfully consent. They are not humans, they do not (usually) have a theory of mind, and they can't understand how or why a human wants his/her way with them. This is animal abuse.

    Do you get it now? Or were you just trolling?

    --
    I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:16AM

      Wow, that's some quality Wrong to go with your normal morning bowl of Nasty. Teenagers are fully capable of making decisions every bit as good as those of adults, they simply need someone else's pool of experience to draw upon rather than their own limited pools. This is where teaching your kids about life instead of expecting a school to do it for you comes in. It helps if you are a good example but a bad one can do just as well, lucky for you.

      This idea that teenagers are still metaphorically in diapers and need coddling is both extremely new and extremely foolhardy. No, their brains are not completely developed. They will make mistakes. They will also learn from them. Yours is fully developed (though in an abnormal and badly in need of servicing sort of way) and you likely have a worse decision-making record than the average teen but we treat you like an adult just the same.

      The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve. Are you really brilliant enough to think that you can single-handedly outsmart whichever method of deciding that you picked? I'm pretty sure I can't outsmart a genetic algorithm that's been running for as long as it has, operating on billions of seats but then I don't have the kind of hubris it takes to be called a liberal today.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:46PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:46PM (#394662)

        The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve. Are you really brilliant enough to think that you can single-handedly outsmart whichever method of deciding that you picked?

        It's much more pleasant wading through the -1 sewer when some exposition goes on to uncover the flaws in dangerous viewpoints rather than simple retorts using name-calling.

        Thanks to both you and the author of the more detailed AC post below [soylentnews.org] for putting in the extra time.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @02:00PM

          *Hat Tip*

          Personally, I'm only in this one because I enjoy pointing out when AH is being a moron. I prefer my women over thirty and have since I was a teenager myself. I'd rather opt for celibacy than fuck a teenager, though they are nice to look at. It's just more fun to kick AH's ass with facts and logic if I have the time.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:58PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @02:58PM (#394737)

        The fact of the matter is, human beings were designed (by either nature or their creator, take your pick) to become sexually active at around twelve.

        Puberty always happens, without fail, at or before twelve? Thats news to me, I didn't go through puberty until 15 or 16.

    • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @12:22PM (#394615)

      Regarding your idiocy conflating gays getting married with pedophilia

      No, that was your idiocy. To repeat, there was not a single statue written that stated specifically that gays could not marry. There were ones that specified partner selection, and as far back as the dark ages of the 1980s, a 12 year old could marry with parental consent. Now it's around 16, well within the general consensus for pedophilia.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_marriage_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

      Perhaps you should actually learn the history of the laws before proceeding to lecture me?

      Moving on...

      the question here is one of harm.

      Which is exactly why you couldn't be bothered to learn the age requirements for marriage, and have been tirelessly advocating for raising the minimum age?

      Or maybe you are just self-serving, I'm-alright-Jack, while bringing up a point that was never broached in the first place?

      A child, and indeed a teenager, is not ready for and cannot understand sex or relationships.

      Which is why you are against sex education that starts in grade schools now, you closet conservative you, right? Or that even a brief survey of married men would make clear that sex and marriage is mutually exclusive, otherwise you'd be arguing for raising the age of consent across the board, not exclusive to marriage.

      Incest: usually involves a massive power differential and/or blackmail

      That's a nice fairytale. Got any actual proof to justify your assertion?

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_regarding_incest_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

      As you can see, marriage isn't prohibited in all jurisdictions either in cases of incest, so in your quest for harm reduction, you are 0 out of 2.

      Boy, you've really got a handle on this marriage thing, don't you?

      Bestiality: Again, animals cannot meaningfully consent.

      Ah, so it is okay to kill and eat an animal, but damnit, they can't consent to marriage. That's just obscene.

      And has been the running theme in this exchange-

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoophilia_and_the_law_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org]

      So again, can you point me towards your exhaustive research on the subject before you reached your conclusions, because your very conservative approach to sex and marriage is clearly out-of-step with a large portion of the US.

      See how easy it is to be very conservative about marriage, especially when it doesn't directly affect you?

      And while this very selective, doesn't-stand-to-benefit-me-at-all notion of consent is amusing, you are also restricting mentally retarded people from sex and marriage.

      Do I have to cue the information on this as well, or can we establish by this point you haven't the foggiest idea of what you are talking about?

      Do you get it now?

      Yes, you're basically a hypocrite who will make the most tenuous justifications excreted directly from your nether regions to make a claim.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:27AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:27AM (#395145) Journal

        This is one long list of fallacies. I'm not even sure I should attempt to correct you, but there seems to be a masochistic streak here, so here goes...

        First off, I'm actually all for sex education early on. I learned about the birds and the bees at four. 4. Quatro. Count 'em, four years old. The result of this? I stayed a virgin by choice until 21, despite having had the option to lose it earlier. Yes, some of what held me back was fear; I didn't feel right coming out to anyone but family before college. It also doesn't help that I haaaaaaated teenagers, especially other girls, while I was one. Seriously, high school is only some magical fantasy land on TV, and God teenage girls are awful.

        As to the rest of your bullshit: your objection to the age of consent going up because "as late as the 80s it was 12 in some places" is a non-sequitur. So it was lower until a few decades ago. So fucking what? 400 years ago they would hang you or worse for blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; should we go back to THAT too?

        Concerning nature's tendency to make us hit puberty early (don't fucking start; I was bleeding at 10 and my sister was barely past her 9th birthday), this is a naturalistic fallacy. The same mechanisms that make us hit puberty in early to mid teens also expected us to die at 30 of some horrible disease or starve to death or bleed out pushing kid #7 out. The entire POINT of being an intelligent species is so we can tell Mother Nature and her abusive pimp Malthus where they can go, what they can do when they get there, with whom, and for how long.

        "Hurr hurr meat is fine but not fucking animals ur a hypocrite" is another non-sequitur. Also, how do you know I'm not a vegetarian? :) You assume rather a lot here.

        I don't know what else to say concerning incest; you SHOULD, if you actually bothered to read my post, have noticed the part where I said I'm aware that "eww gross" does not a law make, and withhold judgement beyond "eww gross" in non-fertile cases like, for example, a pair of sisters.

        You really, really suck at this :(

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 29 2016, @02:15PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 29 2016, @02:15PM (#394692)

      Because we are two adults, in our late 20s, with less than 2 years' difference between us, both of sound mind and body. We are doing financial planning, both employed, and neither of us are criminals nor drains on society.

      Planning to adopt? If not you should not get legally married. (note qualifier of "legally", its gonna be important to the discussion)

      The purpose of the massive amount of government social engineering around the religious concept of marriage is to encourage reproduction and healthy stable long term family life for the kids. Family life as in "you gonna raise some kids". Not have pets, not buy a condo together, etc.

      You seem reasonably intelligent, if occasionally outright incorrect on certain opinions, and at least claim to be a useful member of society of which I have no reason to doubt. That puts you ahead of quite a few actual parents, unfortunately. So I'd encourage you to have kids and get married, so as to generally improve the gene pool on average. And that would go for any other gay couples of a similar level of quality however many or few there are (honestly, no sarcasm intended nor any negative feels)

      ... Or if like most gay couples there is no intention of kids, that means no point in legal marriage. From the .gov point of view. From your point of view maybe you really enjoy filling out 1040A tax forms as a married couple, maybe you get the nice feels, but the .gov and society in general has no reason to encourage you or encourage that behavior. "Whats in it for us?" I'm not a social holiness spiral signalling type, like most people, so I get no dopamine rush by being righteous.

      From a religious point of view, marriage being a sacrament, go ahead. Two adults having fun in church that hurts no one is not an issue for any sane person. Insane people, of course, are going to flip their shit, but I enjoy watching that show as much as anyone else, so absolutely no problem there. They're always flipping out about something or another anyway.

      Just trying to open your mind a bit, that I agree completely with your assessment in your examples that gay marriage seems a victim-less crime. I agree with you completely in your analysis and find no fault in it. Its just that you did the wrong analysis topic, and your opponents did a totally different analysis topic. That is the fundamental failure of your argument, which was otherwise well written, reasoned, and persuasive.

      The actual problem, is similar to tax fraud, like trying to claim my 1960s suburban tract house is a Victorian for those sweet prop tax historical marker reductions. In that way, all of your examples are LARPy, if in the specific example you assume no adopting kids.

      Pretending to be married is bad for everyone actually doing it, eventually the .gov is going to take away our kids education credit, or some damn thing, once the percentage of couples faking it exceeds Z%, where Z might be any arbitrary low number during a budget crisis. Consider it an insult directed against the government and their love of social engineering programs. Its not you per se, its that enough of you are going to get our tax credits taken away unless all those gay couples adopt at a rate matching other couples having kids plus adopting. Gay couples you got your marriage, now you better be smashing down the doors at the state adoption agencies to keep up with us straights...

      Personally I would feel a lot happier if as per separation of church and state, the government had about as much control over and interaction with the religious rite of marriage as they do over baptism. Then you can do whatever you want at church, as you should, and it won't impact my relationship with "big brother" even theoretically. I think the whole world would be better off if Big Brother's giant nose were about as interested in the rite and ceremony of marriage as it is WRT the rite and ceremony of first communion, aka "none"

      Another useful opinion to float is I clearly have a strong probably unbreakable analysis and argument against it, but its a useless debate to have, as the whole thing is only coming up as a "divide and conquer" propaganda anyway. Is it wrong in a binary yes no sense? Yeah, clearly. Is it worth fighting over? Hell No. Its about as "wrong" as jaywalking. Actually that's a pretty good analogy in many ways. If one couple jaywalks it doesn't matter much. If everyone jaywalked we'd be totally F'ed in so many ways. But not many people are going to regardless if its legal or not. That also doesn't mean the cops should never write a jaywalking ticket, or that people who jaywalk are right or morally superior, it doesn't mean anything other than some couples are now very lucky we're not enforcing some plain sense traffic laws today. Of all the wrongs in the world to right, it's pretty low priority in the list.

      • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:17AM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:17AM (#395142) Journal

        Yes, actually, we DO plan to adopt, if we're allowed to. My girlfriend is Chinese by way of Malaysia; she has stories, SO many stories, to tell about girl babies thrown away for the sin of not having a Y chromosome. We are going to adopt at least one if money (and law) permits.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Monday August 29 2016, @09:37AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Monday August 29 2016, @09:37AM (#394564) Journal

    "Gay marriage" is a bit of a misnomer, as the issue isn't whether gays can marry, but restrictions on partner selection

    The issue is precisely about marriage, as few few of the people who object to it would make gay couples illegal entirely. The issue is that we conflate a religious notion of marriage with a legal definition encompassing inheritance rights, power of attorney in case of incapacitation, visiting rights in hospital, income tax breaks, and so on. Gay people are objecting that there are a bunch of legal rights that they are only available to heterosexual couples. The solution to this should be:

    • Remove automatic tax-exempt status from religions. The portion of their income that is used for (audited) charitable purposes can be tax exempt.
    • Disaggregate all of the legal rights that come with marriage into separate things.
    • Provide a standard contract for adopting all of these together.

    If a church wants to refuse to marry gay couple's, that's fine, as long as they're not able to do so while also benefiting from tax exemption for services that they offer.

    --
    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday August 29 2016, @11:27AM

      Your numbers are off. The people with firmly held religious beliefs against gay marriage do not precisely coincide with those objecting to gay marriage. There are plenty who simply hate you and everything you stand for as a default position. There are also people who disapprove of homosexuality simply because it is a deviant* lifestyle and thus at odds with their own. There are also plenty of people who disapprove simply because it was culturally unacceptable when they were growing up to be gay at all. Yeah, lots of reasons that don't involve a bible at all.

      I, for example, used to have a purely pedantic beef with it back in my 20s. I don't like definitions of words being changed to suit a political agenda. I decided that was a stupid reason to tell people what they could do and changed my position but you angrily telling me it was a stupid reason would have been about as counterproductive as it was possible to be.

      * Yes, it by definition is. Look up the word "deviant" in the dictionary.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @11:09AM (#394590)

    why should any of the others be encumbered as well (incest, pedophilia, zoophilia, etc.)

    Are you really so stupid you can't figure this out on your own?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:51PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @01:51PM (#394667)

      Gee, if it's so obvious as to why it's stupid, how about rattling off the simple reason(s) as to why it's so stupid rather than using absolutely nothing other than ad hominem?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @03:14PM (#394752)

        If you can't tell the difference between an animal and a person of legal age to consent, there's no helping you.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 29 2016, @04:35PM (#394799)

          The latter I sweet-talk/buy into having sex with me; the former I kill for food or sport.

          Are you saying death is better than consensual penis-in-vagina sex?