Reflections From a Murky Pond

So the Art & Entertainment Network (A&E) has indefinitely suspended one of the stars of “Duck Dynasty,” Phil Robertson because in an interview with GQ he said some things which offended queers, Blacks, and their enablers and supporters. What this means for their most popular and profitable series remains to be seen.

But, while seemingly very stupid, suspending Robertson for this reason, any reason, or no reason at all is completely within their rights.

If we’re going suspend, terminate, and otherwise vilify, pillory, and attempt to terrorize into submission people who say things that offend various groups within America’s borders, I just wish we’d do so fairly and apply the same treatment to the various queers, Blacks, and other less than mainstream personalities that spout things that offend the majority of the average American citizenry.

That won’t happen though because political correctness is wholly and solely based upon pandering to- and applying a far lower standard of expectations to non-normative, minority cultural adherents.

Tags: A&E | America | Blacks | Christianity | Cultural Mores | Culture War | Duck Dynasty | Entitlement Society | LGBT | Liberals | Phil Robertson | Political Correctness | Progressives | Queers | Sin | Society | Television

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 19th, 2013 at 9:33 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The Slippery Slope is generally considered to be a fallacy. It is an argument in which a person asserts that some event must inevitably follow from another, prior event without any providing any argument for the inevitability of the event in question. In most cases, there are a series of steps or gradations between the eventual event and the one being argued against but no reason is given as to why the intervening steps or gradations will simply be bypassed or enacted in their turn.

In general I agree. The Slippery Slope is a fallacy and, much more often than not, sloppy thinking. But what if we’re greasing the slope as it were?

Many laws, especially those dealing with sexual partnering, sexual acts, and sexual relationships are wholly or primarily based upon societal mores and cultural “prejudices.” Many of those laws that once had valid scientific rationales at one time have lost those rationals due to medical advances. Others had and still have outcome-based basis in the effects such things have upon the titular children of such unions, yet those negative consequences have been ignored in favor of a new ideology.

As you chip away at those laws that are based upon societal mores and cultural “prejudices” or apply new societal mores and cultural “prejudices” to existing situations you can make it so that each increase in permissiveness makes the next incremental increase that much more likely through normalizing or “main streaming” what was once unthought-of, abhorrent, and/or outre.

Western, especially American, jurisprudence also has to be taken into account because it’s inherently based upon Common Law and under the US interpretation of such court cases are decided based upon prior argument, precedents, and judicial pronouncements rather than solely on legislative enactments. in other words, arguments and verdicts in prior, similar court cases can be compelling or even binding precedents in current and future cases.

The Slope As It Was, Is, and Will Probably Be

Progress Is Opinion. Progression Is Mathematics

The battle to overturn the laws against miscegenation was long and hard-fought but it was victorious. But many of the same arguments that were successfully used Loving v. Virginia to end those “Jim Crow” statutes were later used in Lawrence v. Texas to abolish or make largely enforceable the various laws against: Sodomy, Fornication, Adultery, and violent sexual fetishism (BDSM). In turn, arguments from both Loving and Lawrence have been used to legalize Gay Marriage in various states and to overturn DOMA at the federal level.

Each set of court cases added their levels of grease to the slope, making it increasingly slippery. Hence, there is no logical reason not to predict that this progression will continue and that these increasingly entrenched arguments and precedents will be used to legalizing polygamy, incest, and some forms and/or levels of pedophilia.

Tags: America | BDSM | Children | Courts | Crime | Cultural Mores | Ethics & Morality | Homosexuals | Incest | Law | Marriage | Miscegeny | Paraphilia | Pedophilia | Politics | Polygamy | Sex | Slippery Slope | Society

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013 at 6:40 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The Dawn Of Truth – Coffee Then Beer

The Truth comes with the dawn, which is why mornings are so bloody difficult to deal with. But I give thanks and praise unto the Gods that they granted us coffee. Many days it’s the only thing that keeps me going until it’s acceptable to drink beer.

Tags: Beer | Coffee | Cultural Mores | Food & Drink | Humor | Life | Society

This entry was posted on Friday, August 2nd, 2013 at 5:48 am and is filed under Beer, Coffee & Tea, Humor. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

On Wednesday, August 29, 2012 at the 2012 Republican National Convention Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice took the podium and delivered a rousing speech that brought the crowd to their feet and kept them there throughout her oration.

Her focus on the incredible opportunities America presents and the extraordinary goodness of America was a stark contrast to Obama’s normal complaints about the country and its people.

It was an awesome speech and you can read a transcript of it here. One statement in it, however, stood out and still stands out in my mind, and it’s likely not the point that Ms. Rice would want anyone to focus upon as her speech was largely positive in nature.

Whenever you find yourself doubting us – just think of all the times that we have made the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect.

Ms. Rice spoke a great truth in that simple sentence. Yet, in it she has described the truly perilous exceptionalism of America. We are exceptional and we, as a unified people, have made made the impossible seem inevitable in retrospect. That can cut both ways though.

It has always seemed impossible to normal Americans that our country could sink into a entitlement state. Yet, in retrospect, it seems to have been inevitable. It has always seemed impossible to normal Americans that our country could become a semi-totalitarian nanny state. Yet, in retrospect, it seems have been inevitable. It has always seemed impossible to normal Americans that our societal morality could degenerate so far and in so many ways as it has. Yet, in retrospect, it seems to have been inevitable.

This is why America’s exceptionalism is so perilous. We as a people are so powerful and so dynamic that the seemingly impossible is made commonplace and this has fostered a complacency that may well doom us because we fail to understand that it can happen here.

Tags: 2012 Elections | America | Condoleeza Rice | Cultural Mores | Culture | Degenerates | Entropy | Ethics & Morality | Exceptionalism | Freedom | Liberty | Politics | Socialism | Society | Statism | Tyranny

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012 at 9:35 am and is filed under 2012 Election, Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Words define and provide structure to thought. Therefor, it’s important to properly define the words that we use. As an example take the word, “Slut.” Given the weight of connotation attached to it, “slut” must be properly defined in society’s collective mind.

Slut
Function: noun
Date: 15th Century
Origin: Middle English slutte

Definition(s):

1. a woman with the morals of a man

Isn’t that all “slut” really means? When women approach sex in the manner that most men do, that’s what society calls them.

Britney Spears – Morally Mannish?

Now that we’ve properly defined the word, “Slut” we can approach sluts in a more rational and equitable fashion and manner. 😉

Tags: Cultural Mores | Ethics & Morality | Humor | Language & Idiom | Sex | Sluts | Society | Women

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 8:55 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Humor, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.