Priorities

If you've ever stopped to help a homeless or needy person—and I mean truly help them by providing food, clothing, or shelter—you may have found yourself in the awkward and paradoxical position of being rejected by someone desperately in need of your help. While this has never happened to me, I have heard more than enough anecdotal evidence that this type of thing can happen. I don't mean to condemn all homeless people, or urge against offering charity to those in need, but merely to illustrate that sometimes, people will act contrary to their best interests, and attack those with their best interests in mind.

The drunk who curses at the helpful soul who offers food or a job instead of a handout is, of course, addicted to his vice. He cannot, through strength of will, alone, overcome his temptation and has become so dependent on it that he refuses the basic help he needs. Another way of stating this is that his appetites are not subject to his reason, and he cannot freely choose what is good for him, but is instead enslaved to the dictates of his passions.

With me so far?

Now, to shift gears and approach my thesis from another direction: an argument made by the Other Side during the whole Komen/Planned Parenthood debacle, was that sure, Planned Parenthood might have its flaws, but can't we put that aside for the sake of helping women with cancer? One of the slogans I saw along these lines was, "Instead of having my cancer detected by an organization under government investigation, now my cancer won't be detected at all!" It, of course, ignores the reason that Komen halted some funding for Planned Parenthood, namely, that Planned Parenthood wasn't very good at detecting cancer in the first place, but at least it's a step in the right direction. Rather than screaming ad hominem arguments or beating down straw men, it is an actual attempt to engage in rational debate. Credit where it's due.

So I can understand that argument. Put petty squabbles (where "petty" involves the extermination of 300,000 human beings a year) aside in the interest of some greater cause.

But that argument should apply both ways, shouldn't it?

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"The Banalization of Sexuality"

The Murloc sent me an article the other day, asking me to tear it apart. So tear it apart I shall.

The article is called "Why I Want a Male Birth Control Pill", by Kyle Munkittrick and can be read here.

The first paragraph is perhaps the most egregious, so we shall save it for last. Let's start with, this:

"Sex as we know it has two major biological problems: disease and unintended pregnancy."

It boggles my mind that one could look at the natural function of a biological process and call it either a problem or unintended. This is akin to saying "eating has two major problems: food poisoning and nourishment," or "breathing has two major problems: smoke inhalation and respiration."

Consider the phrases: "I intentionally at the entire cheesecake and accidentally gained weight." "I intentionally jumped off the roof and accidentally fell to the ground." "I intentionally had sex and accidentally got pregnant." The first two make the speaker sound like an idiot, but the third one, for some reason, is how people actually think.

Of course, this is just the contraceptive mentality: the delusion that sex is not for sexual reproduction, but rather for pleasure, and the reproductive aspects of it are an unintended side effect. It's a mindset I frequently see in the post-sexual revolution apocalypse. And one Mr. Munkittrick seems to be afflicted with.

Dave Barry (hardly a hero of the pro-chastity movement) even made a joke about this, with one of his book titles: Babies and Other Hazards of Sex. Of course, the joke here is that we all know that babies are what's supposed to happen during sex. It's comical to pretend that they're a hazard, and not the natural end, of the act. It's like saying, "my wife and I took a plane trip to visit her mother but, unfortunately, it didn't crash." The joke is that what was supposed to happen, happened, but we didn't want it to happen. The joke is that we want the opposite of what we do.

But it's only humorous when intended, like Dave Barry's book title, as a joke. Mr. Munkittrick seems to think it seriously.

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/Random

News in Briefs
News reported while wearing underwear.


Local Teen Arrested; Authorities Investigate Possible Sarah Palin Connection

Laguna Niguel, CA—A local teenager has been arrested for shoplifting from several stores in a Laguna Niguel shopping center. According to authorities, shopkeepers had suspected the 16-year-old male for some time, but after one store owner managed to catch the suspected thief on security camera, police were able to act to arrest the boy. According to the sheriff's office, they are also investigating a possible connection to former Alaska governor and Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. During the recent midterm elections, Ms. Palin spoke frequently of the need to "take back" the house and her "kleptomaniacal rhetoric" may have spurred the boy to becoming a thief.


Link of the Day/Week/Month

John C. Wright’s Patented One Session Lesson in the Mechanics of Fiction

Far and away, the best introduction to fiction writing I've read.


Boring (Short) Political Rant
I'm going to try to post fewer of these and get back to my roots of humor, satire, and cat/baby pictures. I realized that all of my readers, save one, already agree with me. Of those that agree, they're all smarter than me anyways, so nothing I say will be particularly insightful. And the one dissenter will be unpersuaded by anything I have to say.


On the Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell


Were it not for the comment from Robert J. Wizard, a frequent and usually sensible commenter on John C. Wright's journal, that it's impossible for most men to go more than a year without masturbating, I would have a rather hard time understanding the opposition to DADT. I've always known that the sexual revolutionaries think chastity is unnecessary, or even perhaps evil. But what I hadn't clued into yet was that, at least subconsciously, they actually think it's impossible. So from this perspective, a policy like DADT, where gays are admitted to the military so long as they don't indulge their disordered desires, is akin to asking them not to breathe.

Once I realized this, I saw the mentality all over, from the opposition to abstinence-only education ("they're gonna do it anyways; might as well teach them to do it safely") to the hatred towards the Church's opposition to condoms in fighting AIDS (the Church sees the choice not to be promiscuous as safer than the choice to be promiscuous, but using condoms; the revolutionaries see the choice as using or not using condoms when being promiscuous).

But of course, this is neither here nor there. Just as the gay-rights advocates never ask what the purpose of marriage is when assuming it to be a right (to me, gay marriage seems kind of like a tampon for men), they also miss the point of the military. "The military's job," as Rush Limbaugh would say, "is to kill people and break things." The only real question is will allowing openly gay people to serve in the military help or hinder that job?

A Pair of Deuces

It is always interesting and enlightening when your opponent tips his hand or reveals his next play. Even if it shows something you had already guessed, there is a satisfaction that comes from knowing that your guess is right.

For instance, when Planned Parenthood is caught repeatedly lying to and deceiving women, they have tipped their hand. It becomes clear that what we guessed—that they do not care about the wellbeing of women and are only in it for the money—is true. Similarly, yesterday's decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, and the arguments surrounding it, tip the hand and show their motivations.

In this case, what tips the hand is not just what is said, but also what is not said: I still have not heard from any gay "marriage" advocate why a government ought to grant special recognition to gay relationships. Instead, the argument seems to be, "well, heterosexuals get marriage licenses, so we should to." This is an argument with the maturity of a two year old.

Lest we forget, remember that gays are not banned from getting married. Any two men could go to Vegas and profess their undying love for eternity—or at least the next seven to 15 years—in front of their friends, family, or loved ones. This isn't merely about marriage as a social institution. This is about marriage as a government-sanctioned relationship. And that's the case that I've never heard made.

To me, gay "marriage" seems kind of like a male tampon. What's the point? If the point of marriage is to encourage through law the just and proper use of the sexual facilities so that children grow up with their parents and women are not abandoned by deadbeat dads, why do those whose sexual acts cannot result in children need these same legal encouragements? But I suppose our society has drifted away from that notion of marriage. Marriage is just something you do to make you feel good. And feeling good is so important that now, apparently, we have a fundamental unenumerated right to a marriage license.

The usual arguments for why government ought to recognize gay "marriage" tend to invoke things such as hospital visitation rights or power of attorney. These arguments fall flat once you realize that all 50 states already grant hospital visitation rights with a simple legal document. And power of attorney can be granted to anyone, not just a spouse, again with a legal document. In fact, the state of California already grants gay couples all the same benefits as married heterosexual couples. They already have everything except the title.

Which is what tips the hand. Gay "marriage" isn't about equality, it's about approval.

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I am so S-M-R-T

A point I made several months ago has been confirmed by John C. Wright!

Me, on 12/17/09, commenting how I find it odd that the left is so forgiving towards radical Islam, despite that it is anti-sexual revolution.

Mark Shea agreed with this point, and drew the parallel to alliances made against the Real Magisterium. I suppose this makes sense from the diabolical chess point of view—the devil plays his pawns as one team—but not from the human reason point of view. The pawn can't see the whole chess board, so why should he trust the black pawn next to him, who in other circumstances would slit his throat? I mean, it's not like the pawns actually believe there's an all-seeing and all-evil mind behind their moves.

John C. Wright, on 6/25/10, commenting on the left's dog-piling on the new Sex in the City movie for being culturally insensitive.

It must seem a mysterious phenomena to those of you who are economically conservative and culturally liberal, Objectivists and so on, that the wing of the Leftist part who seems to agree with your basic “Government cannot legislate morality” stance. So why are your ex-allies siding with the Paynim over the Swingers? The answer cannot be given in your world view, since your model of the universe does not admit of the entities necessary to explain the facts. To my co-religionists, I will merely drop the hint that the sexual revolution cannot do any further major damage to the Church, its work is done, and therefore the Dark Lord who rules this world of sorrow has dropped this weapon and now picks up a new one, called Radical Islam in one hand, and Multiculturalism in the other.

As I said, S-M-R-T.