Shooting at San Diego Synagogue

[El_Machinae]

And has big church Christianity done for them? Despite being told by Christ to "love thy neighbour as thou would love thyself," "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us," "judge not lest ye be judged," and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," all advancement in LGBTQ rights in the Western World has been in spite of big churches, and condemned by big churches every step of the way, to this very day. And Jews, as a religious group specifically, have not been any friendlier to the LGBTQ community. In fact, honestly, which major religion in the world has, from an organizational and hierarchichal point of view?

You don't have to convince me that liberalism is a force for good in the world, I mainly criticize the weakness of self-proclaimed liberals ... and those are different things. It won't be for a few hundred years that we will be able to figure out which set of faiths is superior in creating the cognitive tools allowing the faithful to incorporate non-destructive views of LGBT persons. It's a question that can only be answered through the lens of deep history. Just don't tell me they'll be equal.

I've mentioned Moses in the thread a few times, and you talked about mainstream Christianity's failure right here. So, when it comes to the non-Catholic 'spread' of Christian support for the LGBT community, would you say there's a correlation with whether a church insists that Moses really existed? The Abrahamic toxicity is baked into the text. And as soon as someone insists that the text is 'holy', then we're suddenly struggling with the idea that God literally expressed Divine Distaste.

I'm not enough of a scholar to know if the Bible's distinct break between Jesus and the Old Testament is going to be better than the Quran's idea that Muhammed is merely a successor of Moses. Maybe. Maybe not. Both texts pretend that Moses was real. We'll see which faith is best able to shuck the idea that God actually detests LGBT behaviour.

 

[Patine]

You don't have to convince me that liberalism is a force for good in the world, I mainly criticize the weakness of self-proclaimed liberals ... and those are different things. It won't be for a few hundred years that we will be able to figure out which set of faiths is superior in creating the cognitive tools allowing the faithful to incorporate non-destructive views of LGBT persons. It's a question that can only be answered through the lens of deep history. Just don't tell me they'll be equal.

I've mentioned Moses in the thread a few times, and you talked about mainstream Christianity's failure right here. So, when it comes to the non-Catholic 'spread' of Christian support for the LGBT community, would you say there's a correlation with whether a church insists that Moses really existed? The Abrahamic toxicity is baked into the text. And as soon as someone insists that the text is 'holy', then we're suddenly struggling with the idea that God literally expressed Divine Distaste.

I'm not enough of a scholar to know if the Bible's distinct break between Jesus and the Old Testament is going to be better than the Quran's idea that Muhammed is merely a successor of Moses. Maybe. Maybe not. Both texts pretend that Moses was real. We'll see which faith is best able to shuck the idea that God actually detests LGBT behaviour.

There was an Epistle excluded from the "official" list of New Testament Books at the Nicene Council (among many Gospels, Epistles, and other Christological writings kicking around at that time), called the Epistle of Barnabas (as in the rarely mentioned Apostle Joseph Barnabas, not the murderer, bandit, and insurgent given the Passover Pardon in lieu of Christ by demand of the crowd). It states that Joseph Barnabas, who identifies as being raised into a Second Temple Jewish Priesthood family, but never being formally initiated, states that all the supernatural aspects of Biblical literalism that have brought Fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews to loggerheads with science over the centuries were actually teaching methods and ways of understanding the then unknowable by said priesthood, not viewed in that day as specifically and irrefutably literal, per se.

 

[Synobun]

It is definitely a state department issue. Absolutely. But you need the political will, the political voice, to get your government to care enough to ponder interventions. I'm not commenting that we talk more about local issues, but more that literal state-sanctioned murder from far away didn't even enter their later. It's hard to figure out what is the contempt of low expectation and what isn't.

I get what you're saying about efficacy per unit of time spent. Definitely local is better. Canada is currently losing to the Trump successes, so I'm very aware about how local is necessary

But I think that the issue is not best explained by mental fatigue. I think that the tools aren't in the mental tool kit. By example, climate change, where the conservative movement doesn't actually have tools to deal with the issue. And so it doesn't come up.

I value the concept of mental fatigue, because it's important to husband it. But we have to be careful to not husband it so carefully that we allow it as an excuse for actual moral weakness.

Well, you have to consider what's actually being ignored and what's simply not being talked about. It could be that these people, despite saying nothing, have strong thoughts or feelings about it but feel helpless enough to remain silent about that specific issue. We see people's actions but not their thoughts or intents.

Perhaps that doesn't make much of a difference since the result is largely the same (nobody is talking about it and nothing is being done). That's why I made a point of specifying local reform, since that's something that will influence far-off polities even if the people themselves are insular. E.g. in the case of Canada with an active foreign policy, having a strong pro-LGBT position socially will impact places like Brunei, even if the Canadian public doesn't even know where Brunei is.

Of course, the best would be if the public did vocally care. But I'm not sure how realistic that is. Even supporting local change can feel like shouting into a void, especially now that most communities are interconnected and can witness everyone around them failing at the same goal collectively.

 

[Patine]

It is definitely a state department issue. Absolutely. But you need the political will, the political voice, to get your government to care enough to ponder interventions. I'm not commenting that we talk more about local issues, but more that literal state-sanctioned murder from far away didn't even enter their later. It's hard to figure out what is the contempt of low expectation and what isn't.

I get what you're saying about efficacy per unit of time spent. Definitely local is better. Canada is currently losing to the Trump successes, so I'm very aware about how local is necessary

But I think that the issue is not best explained by mental fatigue. I think that the tools aren't in the mental tool kit. By example, climate change, where the conservative movement doesn't actually have tools to deal with the issue. And so it doesn't come up.

I value the concept of mental fatigue, because it's important to husband it. But we have to be careful to not husband it so carefully that we allow it as an excuse for actual moral weakness.

I'm afraid I disagree that local focus uber al is a superior priority in the least. This is isn't the world of 100 years ago. The world is so interconnected, politically, socially, culturally, economically, and, as of the last 4 decades, digitally, that local priority and parochial thinking, and their mid-level superlative, nationalism, have become among the most destructive forms of thought today. Look at the North Korea, the current worst case scenario extant at this time. Although I am firmly against endless wars and military interventionism, the world isn't a Risk board, there are many more productive ways for cooperate and interact that we should be working SERIOUSLY on emphasizing and learning. We - all going on 8 billion - living on a ticking time bomb of a death trap called Earth, and local-focus and parochialism only hastens our demise - even for those who think they are doing what is best for their own. In fact, there came a time in the foreseeable future when - *gasp* - the nation-state, as we know it, becomes obsolete and an unsustainable burden.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm on your team, there. The part I was agreeing with is that local activism feels like it's a more effective use of one's time.

When it comes to people's charity efforts, I rarely criticize people's individual focus. "Oh, you could be using your time better in X,Y, or Z." Now, I think I can enlighten people to a better use of their time, but that's not the same thing. My criticism is usually devoted to getting people off of the couch, and to trim leisures that I will never have, and help in one of the ways that needs helping.

But the silence of my feed regarding Brunei was stunning to me, because I realized that their individual echo-chambers wouldn't get something like that brought to their attention. I think liberals have a very hard time crossing borders with their concerns, but in a way that's different from how conservatives tend to 'care' more about people within their in-group.

 

[Synobun]

I'm afraid I disagree that local focus uber al is a superior priority in the least. This is isn't the world of 100 years ago. The world is so interconnected, politically, socially, culturally, economically, and, as of the last 4 decades, digitally, that local priority and parochial thinking, and their mid-level superlative, nationalism, have become among the most destructive forms of thought today. Look at the North Korea, the current worst case scenario extant at this time. Although I am firmly against endless wars and military interventionism, the world isn't a Risk board, there are many more productive ways for cooperate and interact that we should be working SERIOUSLY on emphasizing and learning. We - all going on 8 billion - living on a ticking time bomb of a death trap called Earth, and local-focus and parochialism only hastens our demise - even for those who think they are doing what is best for their own. In fact, there came a time in the foreseeable future when - *gasp* - the nation-state, as we know it, becomes obsolete and an unsustainable burden.

Just to clarify my position since I'm the one who brought up insular advocacy over broad advocacy: I don't mean it in a sense of being closed off or nationalistic. I meant it in a "fix the problems at home first because that will make it easier to fix problems elsewhere" sense. A state with a robust pro-[social issue] society is better equipped to influence states where there's a lot of anti-[social issue] rhetoric.

As it stands, even progressive states have significant populations of anti- behaviour. It's tough to really push at a state's poor track record and advocate change when in your own backyard people from that demographic often live in fear (be it due to objective risk or implied social value). And more to the point, a government is really good at influencing public opinion. Having state-backed advocacy is exponentially more effective than interspersed public clamoring.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm thinking that 'fix problems at home to change things internationally' has some type of diminishing returns. Now, I'm not a member of the community in Alberta, but I am definitely viewed as in the mix when it comes to pro-active allies. I cannot say that we're sufficiently 'not oppressed' that we should quit as having 'won'. But I will absolutely say that Alberta is completely better than Brunei. Now, how do I unpack whether the LGBT 'ignoring' of Brunei isn't just implicit racism on the part of Albertan liberals?

 

[Synobun]

I'm thinking that 'fix problems at home to change things internationally' has some type of diminishing returns. Now, I'm not a member of the community in Alberta, but I am definitely viewed as in the mix when it comes to pro-active allies. I cannot say that we're sufficiently 'not oppressed' that we should quit as having 'won'. But I will absolutely say that Alberta is completely better than Brunei. Now, how do I unpack whether the LGBT 'ignoring' of Brunei isn't just implicit racism on the part of Albertan liberals?

Diminishing returns or just being impatient? We can enact rapid changes on an individual level but the state is slow. We're only a few years removed from Harper and the Conservatives, and the first couple years of Trudeau were mired by people calling him "soy boy" and making fun of him donning traditional dress while overseas. Then we have nice new hiccups like Ford's Ontario government actively and publicly refusing to collaborate with the federal government and just outright obliterating entire social programs.

In the "big picture", we're just barely staying above water on the social issue front. What can we really do about Brunei when we have actors in our own corner trying to undermine the progress that's been made?

 

[El_Machinae]

In the "big picture", we're just barely staying above water on the social issue front. What can we really do about Brunei when we have actors in our own corner trying to undermine the progress that's been made?

We're in the same boat over here. Canadian liberals have trouble even protecting their gains in Canada.
The counter-point would be "how can you say you actually care about LGBT issues if Brunei doesn't even enter your worldview?" Like, when people are discussing the risks to the LGBT community, I can expect them to be cognizant of the actual risks.

I don't have an answer. I can just say that I was stunned at the silence on my feed.

 

[Patine]

We're in the same boat over here. Canadian liberals have trouble even protecting their gains in Canada.
The counter-point would be "how can you say you actually care about LGBT issues if Brunei doesn't even enter your worldview?" Like, when people are discussing the risks to the LGBT community, I can expect them to be cognizant of the actual risks.

I don't have an answer. I can just say that I was stunned at the silence on my feed.

Canada has a seesaw of party power. Many eras of party power rise on the back of the failures of the last, who themselves did do in kind. Mulroney rose on the unpopularity of Trudeau, sr. in 1984 (though Trudeaumania had been in full swing in the late '60's and early 70's, and he had been very popular then), but Mulroney's initial huge surge collapsed BIG TIME in 1993. Chretien was not a stellar figure of popularly, but kept the Liberals for 13 years. Harper defeated Martin and was quite well-received by many in 2006 over the "corrupt Liberals," but by 2015, he had overstayed his welcome. This is very much a cyclical thing in Canada, to be honest.

 

[El_Machinae]

It's true, that there is a bit of a seesaw, but this seesaw is best represented according to a normalized view of Canadian politics.

Compare Canada to Brunei politics, and we've been staunchly liberal for a number of decades now. Especially when it comes to LGBT issues.

 

[Patine]

It's true, that there is a bit of a seesaw, but this seesaw is best represented according to a normalized view of Canadian politics.

Compare Canada to Brunei politics, and we've been staunchly liberal for a number of decades now. Especially when it comes to LGBT issues.

Funny thing is, I read an article on these matters on a news site, and someone in the reader comments brought up how Brunei STATISTICALLY has a higher GNP PER CAPITA than most First World Nations, including Canada, the U.S., the UK, Germany, and Japan. Of course, the part that eludes them is the difference in the MEANIGFUL distribution of that wealth, how it benefits most Bruneians, and how it advances the country's society and progress, versus filling the coffers of the Sultan, his family, and his personal cronies.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What proportion of rapes/sexual assaults do you think are convicted....????

For rape, under 10%. False accusation convictions around 1% or so. Even combined, convictions in either direction are sub-10%. This is a good reason to look at assertions of what "really happened" in the other 90% with intense scrutiny, rather than accepting blatant statistical lies in either direction.

I won't get into "sexual assault" since people don't like to define their terms. I would define it as forcing physical contact against the other person's will, but that doesn't appear to be universally accepted for some reason. Someone who got stared at on a train for a few creepy minutes was not "assaulted" or even "harassed".

the terms "degenerate" and "deviant" are used by the far-right as the modern equivalent of untermensch. fascists deploy these words regularly to target and assault those that they consider to be weaker and lesser them themselves. its dehumanizing and disgusting.

The far right isn't entitled to the decision on how to use English language. Neither is the far left or anybody else. Degenerate has proper usage in context, and in fact my most typical usage of it involves game mechanic/interactions that make the game worse. I reject an assertion that claiming terrible UI is degenerate = "far right", and thus that this is some nonsense "far right vocabulary word".

see what i mean? we went from "degenerates" and "deviants" to "having to see this crap and think its normal."

Shouting at people for several minutes on end over basically nothing is not, in fact, normal. It might be useful to reread what you quoted for context and address the actual point made rather than addressing a position nobody made.

Can i interest you in pondering what your life would be like without facebook?

I'd say that I am dropping Facebook for being proven liars with obvious political bias, poor protection of user information, and joke enforcement of joke ToS...

But I've already stopped using it ~10 ago out of plain disinterest, so it won't actually change anything.

If you read Freud theory of Sexual Perversion, you will be surprise that Freud actually build the conclusion of homosexuality as perversion under the same premise (IIRC, I read it during my undergrads). Even though Freud is an atheist that despised religion.

I thought Freud wasn't well-regarded for accuracy these days? Atheists can make the same mistakes in reasoning as those following religions. In some cases the thought process is even identical, just replacing traditional religion with some other model of belief w/o evidence.

I value the concept of mental fatigue, because it's important to husband it. But we have to be careful to not husband it so carefully that we allow it as an excuse for actual moral weakness.

The counter-point would be "how can you say you actually care about LGBT issues if Brunei doesn't even enter your worldview?" Like, when people are discussing the risks to the LGBT community, I can expect them to be cognizant of the actual risks.

Who gets to decide "moral weakness"? I've seen many assertions of "Copenhagen ethics" as I saw it recently described, that people are somehow responsible for knowing of bad things happening and not acting sufficiently. They somehow become morally responsible for said bad things to some extent, even if they don't cause them, interact with them, or maybe even partially help but allegedly insufficiently.

I'm unconvinced, I consider that position more obviously wrong than the quantum mechanics Copenhagen interpretation . I agree what's going on in Brunei is bad, but I don't see a clear moral/ethical responsibility for the US or Canada to force them to behave differently. I'd say the US in particular has been *too* quick to behave in such fashion, with questionable choices if we were to accept a humanitarian motive at face value...

The whole purpose of having independent nations is that they're responsible for how their country is governed. In fact people in general are responsible for their choices...not others who "didn't try hard enough" to alter those choices.

 

[El_Machinae]

There is an interesting moral divide when it comes to intervening in order to stop an atrocity. Up until the Nationalist wave, I would have pigeon-holed self-described liberals as being less mentally capable of intervening in an atrocity. Reticence for intervening decreases as the amount of violence involved in the intervention goes down.

Now you are correct. We always, always, always screw it up. So the fear that we are going to screw it up should be a very loud voice at the table. Very loud. This doesn't mean that we don't have an obligation to intervene. It just means that we have to intervene correctly.

If you were on a walk, and you saw a dude kicking his dog in the park, you then have to decide whether or not you'll intervene. Do you judge your relative strength against his, and then intercede on behalf of the dog? Do you walk on past, because their household is not your household? Do you create and then call upon umbrella institutions to intervene, like the cops?

It's very easy to screw up the intervention. If you confront the dude, you don't know if you will trigger him to abuse the dog worse in private. If you allow animal rights legislation, you then run the risk of cops intervening in your own household. If you fail your risk assessment on the fella, you might get hurt yourself. It's not easy.

There is an interesting divide going on in the right-wing right now. The movement tends to oscillate between choosing to walk on past, leaving the dog to its own problems, or intervening directly with threats of force and violence.

What we do know is that there is a subset of people in our society that will not blink twice for selling the dude a stronger collar and a horse whip. And others will be quite happy to not mind that the sales take place

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Now you are correct. We always, always, always screw it up. So the fear that we are going to screw it up should be a very loud voice at the table. Very loud. This doesn't mean that we don't have an obligation to intervene. It just means that we have to intervene correctly.

Actually, I reject an "obligation" to do anything to another independent country. We might consider i the best value proposition for humanity (though as you point out track record should make this assertion very dubious). But an obligation? No. We are not morally or legally bound to do anything to distant countries.

If you were on a walk, and you saw a dude kicking his dog in the park, you then have to decide whether or not you'll intervene. I do you judge your relatives judge your relative strength against his, and then intercede on behalf of the dog? Do you walk on past, because their household is not your household? Do you create and then call upon umbrella institutions to intervene, like the cops?

My answer depends on observed context and what results I anticipate achieving through a particular chosen action. I also wouldn't rule out that he was attacked and kicking away a dog that isn't his, depending on what exactly I saw. Intervention in favor of the dog in that scenario would be a strict moral negative in my book.

There is an interesting divide going on in the right-wing right now. The movement tends to oscillate between choosing to walk on past, leaving the dog to its own problems, or intervening directly with threats of force and violence.

Absent the person or dog looking deranged/unusually threatening, it seems the most reasonable action would be to ask what's going on in a neutral or concerned way and hear an explanation. I realize that typical political tribal thinking might jump to some kind of violence immediately, but at least by my value system this shouldn't be our aiming point.

What we do know is that there is a subset of people in our society that will not blink twice for selling the dude a stronger collar and a horse whip.

That subset is not large. They're of the same rationale as the fringe that would attack the guy even in my "dog is the aggressor" scenario above and I hold neither in high regard.

 

[Farm Boy]

Dogs aren't as smart as pigs and it's not in a kill shelter. The right whip is probably an improvement over his foot, both for training and decreased likelihood of direct injury.

But this is the world stage, not a park. And the humans are very far away and not inconveniencing first world citizens by being in person and making their feels sad. There is no socially accepted man with broad public license to beat the dog owner into submission that you can three digit call. All your options involve hurting people. Economic sanctions? Direct force? Ignoring it? Creating a non consensual international enforcement unit? Sounds like something that might improve somethings. Sounds like an old path with old names.

 

[Patine]

There is an interesting moral divide when it comes to intervening in order to stop an atrocity. Up until the Nationalist wave, I would have pigeon-holed self-described liberals as being less mentally capable of intervening in an atrocity. Reticence for intervening decreases as the amount of violence involved in the intervention goes down.

Now you are correct. We always, always, always screw it up. So the fear that we are going to screw it up should be a very loud voice at the table. Very loud. This doesn't mean that we don't have an obligation to intervene. It just means that we have to intervene correctly.

If you were on a walk, and you saw a dude kicking his dog in the park, you then have to decide whether or not you'll intervene. Do you judge your relative strength against his, and then intercede on behalf of the dog? Do you walk on past, because their household is not your household? Do you create and then call upon umbrella institutions to intervene, like the cops?

It's very easy to screw up the intervention. If you confront the dude, you don't know if you will trigger him to abuse the dog worse in private. If you allow animal rights legislation, you then run the risk of cops intervening in your own household. If you fail your risk assessment on the fella, you might get hurt yourself. It's not easy.

There is an interesting divide going on in the right-wing right now. The movement tends to oscillate between choosing to walk on past, leaving the dog to its own problems, or intervening directly with threats of force and violence.

What we do know is that there is a subset of people in our society that will not blink twice for selling the dude a stronger collar and a horse whip. And others will be quite happy to not mind that the sales take place

Hence why I don't self-identify as "liberal" or any other forced, pigeon-holed, arbitrary commonly-used socio-political stance. I have my own beliefs, ideologies, and viewpoints, and they are how I see the world. Some MAY be viewed as liberal, some as libertarian, some as progressive, some as socialist, some slightly conservative, some moderate/centrist stuff, a big dose of rational thinking, and some as following Christ's Ministry (but NOT big-church Christianity) - but, I'm NOT accepting baggage I didn't sign up for, any blame I have no hand in, any beliefs nailed to me I don't have, or associations with people and leaders I don't like, so I WILL NOT give myself a socio-political label. I'm sorry to anyone who can't deal with this and MUST refer to everyone by stock labeling, complete with bad stereotypes, political ammunition, easy assumptions and convenient groupings.

 

[El_Machinae]

I agree. You'll find that I often take pains to use this term "self-described". I often forget to, but I try.

Actually, I reject an "obligation" to do anything to another independent country.

You are a person, and other people are people. You cannot attack a country, because a country is just an idea. You can take actions against people, and then those actions will either benefit other people or help them.

I believe you that you feel no moral obligation to intervene in an atrocity, but this is not a mainstream view. There will be people who won't even phone the police. There will always be people that will sell the dog owner a horse whip. And there will always be people that don't chastise the merchant for doing so.

The problem with the Nationalist mindset is that it has no mechanism for dealing with global problems. For example, international carbon emissions are going to cause the erosion of Tuvalu shoreline. The Nationalist cannot figure out a way to get other people to reduce their carbon emissions, and so will not feel a moral obligation to cut back their own. And then, the Nationalist mindset results in stealing the shoreline of a independent country.

Note that I have not called for any military intervention against Brunei. I think it's a problem that can be handled by International pressure and sanctions. And if I am using sanctions, I'm not doing anything to another country. I'm only changing the allowed behavior of my own household.

 

[Farm Boy]

Need a much more imperial one, that's for true.

 

[Patine]

Actually, I reject an "obligation" to do anything to another independent country. We might consider i the best value proposition for humanity (though as you point out track record should make this assertion very dubious). But an obligation? No. We are not morally or legally bound to do anything to distant countries.

I agree. You'll find that I often take pains to use this term "self-described". I often forget to, but I try.



You are a person, and other people are people. You cannot attack a country, because a country is just an idea. You can take actions against people, and then those actions will either benefit other people or help them.

I believe you that you feel no moral obligation to intervene in an atrocity, but this is not a mainstream view. There will be people who won't even phone the police. There will always be people that will sell the dog owner a horse whip. And there will always be people that don't chastise the merchant for doing so.

The problem with the Nationalist mindset is that it has no mechanism for dealing with global problems. For example, international carbon emissions are going to cause the erosion of Tuvalu shoreline. The Nationalist cannot figure out a way to get other people to reduce their carbon emissions, and so will not feel a moral obligation to cut back their own. And then, the Nationalist mindset results in stealing the shoreline of a independent country.

Note that I have not called for any military intervention against Brunei. I think it's a problem that can be handled by International pressure and sanctions. And if I am using sanctions, I'm not doing anything to another country. I'm only changing the allowed behavior of my own household.

Also, another flaw with Nationalistic thinking, is that Nationalists try to present the highly flawed and unworkable idea that nation-states are actually DESERVING or JUSTIFYING of Enlightenment-style natural rights and protections for human beings - that they have the same intrinsic and organic legitimacy, when in truth, they're all just artificial socio-political constructs whose borders were drawn up at SOME point and agreed on by SOMEONE and their existence, de facto, if not de jure, has no special protection or inherent quality to it. As an ESA astronaut said when looking down from the International Space Station, "you can't see international borders from space."