Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
This should have been a blog post instead of a remark on my “wall,” over at the Hello Kitty of Blogging…things just go that way sometimes…
If gay marriage were all about providing equal rights, I’d be all for it. But it isn’t about that. Just like “raising the minimum wage” isn’t about raising anybody’s wage, when you really think about it you see it’s all about outlawing jobs that pay below a certain amount — “gay marriage” is a proposal to muck up a definition. That’s what it is, it’s an attack on definitions of things.
Do we need to muck up, or remove, definitions of things. Well let’s see now:
“Health care” is not health care, and “access to health care” now means making it harder to get hold of health care, right?
“Immigration reform,” often thought by many to have something to do with some kind of “fence” somewhere, increasingly seems more and more synonymous with “amnesty.”
“Global warming” isn’t happening. It’s rather silly to say we should be getting all excited over something called “climate change,” although that isn’t stopping anyone, it seems…
“Working families” aren’t. And don’t.
“National Security Agency” isn’t providing much by way of security, and actually we’re not even allowed to know what exactly it is they’re trying to do.
“Internal Revenue Service” isn’t providing the kind of “service” you’d actually want.
“Reality television” isn’t, and everybody knows it.
Nobody seems to even know what “green energy” is. Nobody seems to care. They sure like to tell other people what not to do, though.
I notice the definitions deteriorate most quickly and most surely in those parts of our shared life & culture that receive the greatest attention/activity. Starting with “coffee.” Is anybody actually drinking REAL coffee anymore? You can pay $5 a cup for something, but I’m not paying that for coffee…
Speaking of paying for things. Do we even know what an “economy” is at this point? What about an “economic recovery”? In this Age of Obama, I’ve seen a lot of things called “economic recovery” that I don’t think are that. When I do see some economic metrics reported they’re almost always accompanied by the word “unexpected,” and I don’t think we’re all in agreement about what that word means either…
And I’ve been saying for a long time, we’re doing a bang-up job coming up with “disorders” that aren’t. And failing to label & diagnose things as “disorders” which, I would argue, really are.
Which brings me to the word “bullying.” It’s being stretched completely out of shape, applied to things that aren’t bullying. Those who seem to be most often excited about the whole concept of “bullying,” very often forget that it is a long-standing tactic of bullies to convince others that the people they’re bullying are the ones doing the bullying to them. The bullying I remember from my youth had a lot to do with deception. Either that’s changed, or it’s working very well…I think it hasn’t changed, and it’s just working a lot better.
And that’s why I want the definition of marriage to stay as it is. Something should. Until the day comes that we can communicate with each other again and achieve real confidence in what we’re talking about, we need a break from re-defining things. We’ve changed enough, and done enough damage, for now.
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It’s pretentious to quote oneself, so I’ll just point out that this guy had some similar thoughts re: gay marriage:
I’d be all for getting the State out of marriage entirely — making the whole shebang a matter of private contracts — which would, as that guy up there said, leave everyone free to marry a heterosexual, a homosexual, or the entire fourth line of the New York Islanders, with or without the religious solemnization of your choice. The fact that the left wouldn’t dream of agreeing to this — I’m sure I’m some kind of raaaaacist for even suggesting it — is all the proof you need.
- Severian | 06/11/2013 @ 09:55crap – sorry about the html tags
- Severian | 06/11/2013 @ 09:56Wish I could get behind the recent spate of anti-bullying campaigns — like many small, smart kids, I was bullied in grade school and would thus like to see less of it — but I’ve seen enough out of the leftist playbook to smell a rat. This is the classic method by which leftists beat innocuous words and phrases, plowshares of normal conversation, into specialized swords with which to beat their political enemies.
First you take a word almost everyone can agree on. (Say: choice. Everyone likes choice. We’re all for choice! It’s a choice thing! We live in America because it gives us freedom to choose!) And then you apply either end of the periscope to the word — you narrow it down to an impossibly small political definition (as in restricting “choice” to abortion and recreational drug use) or inflate it until it distorts and explodes (as leftists are currently trying to do with “marriage”).
Bullying, almost everyone agrees, is a social ill, both for the bullies and the bullied. But almost everyone currently agrees on a working definition of what constitutes “bullying.” Depend on leftists to change that right away — I expect something along the lines of pointing the finger of shame at people who have never touched or even spoken to a gay person with malice, but who say, “I don’t support gay marriage because of my religious beliefs.” See? Bully! And bullies have to be stopped, we already agreed on that! Or angrily turning on the “bully” who peaceably describes herself as politically conservative. We all know conservatives are evil — they try to make your grandma eat dog food and they throw little children out on the street! She’s one step away from the jackboots and swastika! We’ve got to stop her before she starts rounding up minorities and deploying them to camps! That kind of crap.
So, yeah, I’m on yellow alert when it comes to anti-bullying in general. Not because I’m not in favor of stopping bullies, but because I’m not in favor of redefining what bullying means as a method of creating yet another leftist political tool.
- Soozcat | 06/11/2013 @ 11:25[…] “GAY MARRIJ”? — Do we need to muck up, or remove, definitions of things. Well let’s see now … […]
- Free Canuckistan! | 06/16/2013 @ 12:34