November 3, 2006

11:39 PM

Can we please shut the comments on the Ted Haggard thread? It's turned into the same argument repeated over and over again.
posted by dw to etiquette/policy at 11:39 PM (537 comments total)

Left as it is, I think it could hit 2000 comments by the end of the weekend. It's turning into a cautionary tale for posting religion-related FPP.

(Maybe that's a good thing, though, because I'm really getting tired of AtheistFilter/JesusFilter.)
posted by dw at 11:40 PM on November 3, 2006

Sorry, dw. MeFi is astonishingly hard on non-fundamentalists.
posted by felix betachat at 11:52 PM on November 3, 2006

Jesus was a homosexual atheist.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 11:57 PM on November 3, 2006

Yes, there are some arguments which get repeated again and again on MeFi, Iraq, I/P, Bush, Religion, etc. I spent some time whining about it, but, at a certain point, it became obvious that 1) it wouldn't going away, even if God himself came down to complain on Meta about it, and 2) it's really easy to not click on posts which you don't want on MeFi once you get in the habit of it.

The problem is that you're still in the hate-but-click phase, where you hate it, but you can't stop from clicking and reading all the comments. So, just spend a week not clicking on any thread about religion. If you need to, put a rubber band around your wrist like you're kicking smoking. You'll quickly get in the habit of reading the post once, realizing it's about that subject and then your eyes will just skip over it from then on out. It really works.
posted by boaz at 12:12 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Paul-Henri Thiry forgives you for your sins against God.



PS I agree with boaz.

PPS Has there even been a non-deleted thread where the comments were closed?
posted by Mister Cheese at 12:16 AM on November 4, 2006

dw posted "Can we please shut the comments on the Ted Haggard thread? It's turned into the same argument repeated over and over again."

dw, who's holding a gun to your head and forcing to read the comments?

You want to pick up your bat and ball and go home, that's fine. But you don't get to call the game because it's not going the way you'd hoped.
posted by orthogonality at 12:19 AM on November 4, 2006

I'll note that dw, in addition to posting 12 comments in that thread, quite possibly started the drift off-topic, with a gratuitous swipe at Richard Dawkins.

So apparently, dw can dish it out. But when it comes to taking it, he can't stand the heat so please close the kitchen. Color me impressed, dw.
posted by orthogonality at 12:25 AM on November 4, 2006 [2 favorites]

But you don't get to call the game because it's not going the way you'd hoped.

The way I "hoped?" Good Lord, is everything about winning and losing to you?

I'll note that dw, in addition to posting 12 comments in that thread, quite possibly started the drift off-topic, with a gratuitous swipe at Richard Dawkins.

Oh hey, let's blame dw for the derail! Never mind that by the time he said anything the train was already flipped over, on fire, and leaking its cargo into the air prompting evacuations of more than 20,000 residents! Surely HE must be at fault!

So apparently, dw can dish it out. But when it comes to taking it, he can't stand the heat so please close the kitchen. Color me impressed, dw.

No. The thread is cycling back on itself, repeating the same arguments and brickbats with new people. It's not going anywhere. I mean, the last 100 comments were centered around whether God hates shrimp. This thread is toast.
posted by dw at 12:36 AM on November 4, 2006

someone says "fags = pedos"

and some liberal defends her because you have to respect people's sincere beliefs


that's why you guys lose a lot of elections, really. nevermind Diebold

(oh, and ther gaydar thing was hilarious)
posted by matteo at 1:19 AM on November 4, 2006 [2 favorites]

Wait, if we end this, can we preemptively end those fucking Mac threads?

This thread is toast

Letting it die on its own isn't enough? It can't just die a quiet and lingering death by itself like every other thread here? This one deserves special attention because...?
posted by hototogisu at 1:48 AM on November 4, 2006

the last 100 comments were centered around whether God hates shrimp

Look, He makes them live on the bottom of the ocean and eat fish shit. You work it out.
posted by George_Spiggott at 1:55 AM on November 4, 2006 [2 favorites]

hototogisu writes "This one deserves special attention because...?"


Because some Christians want special treatment. The same clowns who scream about "special rights" for gays are wailing WAAAH-WAAH-WAAH, stop oppressing us Christians by talking about our hypocritical leaders!

Stop pointing out that Pastor Ted, above all, is a pastor who fueled the Republican anti-gay crusade and who kept telling Dubya he's special in God's eyes and so stay the course in Iraq.

Stop pointing out that apparently the biggest part of being a Christian, for some, is pure bigotry -- hating on gays. All the while sanctimoniously calling that hate a public service designed to "save" gays from Hell.

And when that's pointed out, inevitably some Christian asks for special rights -- close down the thread it's hurting our tender Christian sensibilities. (and there's a war on Christmas!)

Nietzsche called Christianity a slave religion. Looks more like a whine religion, at least as practiced by some of its louder adherents.

If (as dw himself gratuitously threw out) it had been Richard Dawkins being a hypocrite -- if Dawkins had cancer and was found to be secretly parrying for a miracle cure -- would dw be asking that the thread be shut down because of all the Christians pointing fingers and calling Dawkins a hypocrite? I somehow doubt it.


You know, the more I think about it, it's always the Christians who complain about "special rights" for gays, who are actually the ones asking for special rights: teach our religion in the public schools, don't teach established science that undermines it, put our slogans on your coins and in your Pledge of Allegiance, plaster our moral code in your courtrooms, open your secular law-making with prayers to our sky-wizard, call America a "Christian Nation", etc., etc., etc.

Get a grip: why does your omnipotent God need so much praise? If he does, go to your churches more often than just Sunday and do it there, not in the public schools and public courthouse and the capital building.

Despite being an atheist, despite being called immoral because of that since I was in grade school by Christians, I've never had any desire to tell anyone else how or what to worship. I've always been one to live and let live: you want to speak in tongues, you want to handle snakes, you want to eat magic wafers and wash it down with wine that's "really blood", go ahead, make the most of it. But I'm damned tired of God-botherers who can't even keep their own pants on telling the rest of us how we should live.

Go fed the hungry, go clothe the poor, but stay the hell out of our bedrooms and stop asking for special rights. According to your magic book, Jesus didn't need to, so why do you?
posted by orthogonality at 2:40 AM on November 4, 2006 [24 favorites]

who's holding a gun to your head

You want to pick up your bat and ball and go home

So apparently, dw can dish it out. But when it comes to taking it

he can't stand the heat

Color me

live and let live

Somebody needs to spend a little more time praying to Calliope.
posted by felix betachat at 2:58 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

What ortho said.
posted by slater at 3:16 AM on November 4, 2006

Ortho: Despite being an atheist... I've never had any desire to tell anyone else how or what to worship.

Well, except here:

why does your omnipotent God need so much praise? If he does, go to your churches more often than just Sunday and do it there, not in the public schools and public courthouse and the capital building.

You know, just pointing out the apparent contradiction.
posted by Dunwitty at 3:26 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

It's easy to ignore. Unless the five horsemen have shown up in the thread and/or a diode in the Apple Lisa this site is hosted on burned out, sending a B-52 hurtling towards Moscow, let folks hash it out.
posted by maxwelton at 3:33 AM on November 4, 2006

Why do you need to pee so much? If you do, use the bathroom more than once a day and quit pissing on the houseplants, the couch and the TV.

That's reminding people to mind their manners, not ordering them to do things.
posted by maxwelton at 3:36 AM on November 4, 2006

Can we please shut the comments on the Ted Haggard thread? It's turned into the same argument repeated over and over again.

Yes, YES! Ha ha ha! Cry more! "No! No! I don't like to hear it! Mummy! Stop them saying those things!" CRY MORE! FEEL THE JARRING SCRAPE OF COGNITIVE DISSONANCE! FEEL THE STING!!!
posted by Arcaz Ino at 3:52 AM on November 4, 2006

Newsfilter. Delete it.
posted by Eideteker at 4:44 AM on November 4, 2006

While it often happens here, has a thread ever been closed but not deleted on Metafilter? I can't think of another such instance.
posted by crunchland at 5:14 AM on November 4, 2006

All worth it for the gaydar thing. I did teh lol.
posted by reklaw at 5:14 AM on November 4, 2006

> Newsfilter. Delete it.

I vote that it remain both permanently open and permanently on the front page as flypaper a playground for the Same Old Crowd.
posted by jfuller at 5:28 AM on November 4, 2006

Same Old Crowd = do not hate teh fags
posted by matteo at 6:20 AM on November 4, 2006

Five horsemen? There's a new horseman? That's kind of wierd, like when She-Hulk was in the Fantastic Four.

Say, it's not She-Hulk, is it? Death, War, Pestilence, Famine and She-Hulk.

It would have to be a big horse.
posted by Grangousier at 6:39 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Fuck yes, orthogonality, well and truly said.
posted by OmieWise at 7:10 AM on November 4, 2006

Thank god for no img tag, tho
posted by bonaldi at 7:15 AM on November 4, 2006

This has to be the whiniest, most especially stupidist callout I've seen in months.

Yes, I have taken into account all the ultra-whiny "why was my AskMe deleted?", and I still had to adjust the scale from decades to a base 10 logrithm.

According to my instruments this registered as a 7.5 on the Prickter scale, with a hypocentral depth of 0.01 meters (very shallow) and an epicenter located approximately 4.1 miles South by Southwest of your mom.
posted by loquacious at 7:20 AM on November 4, 2006 [4 favorites]

while we're at it, can we delete all those 'ask metafilter' questions? i just don't have the time to answer them all...
posted by troybob at 7:29 AM on November 4, 2006

Having read the excellent and amusing coverage here on metaTalk, I thought I'd take a look at the thread in question, I found this:

Oh, and sadly, my grandma might just be in hell-but only the Saviour knows that for sure. Frankly I can only think of one deceased family member who I think made it to heaven. Obviously it hurts my heart a lot (Most of my extended family are not born again.)

Does that break anyone else's heart a little?
posted by econous at 7:42 AM on November 4, 2006

boaz: "The problem is that you're still in the hate-but-click phase, where you hate it, but you can't stop from clicking and reading all the comments."

That's a really bad excuse. People have used it for too long.

Look, here's the deal. There are those of us who choose not to read the political screeds here at MeFi because they usually turn ugly. The trouble is, when they turn ugly, and people start screaming at each other, the stock response is, "you don't have to read it." Well, that would be fine, except for the fact that we're aiming for civil discourse here. I don't mind people having threads about whale shit, or Bush, or Iraq, or semen-eating monkeys even. I don't need to read them. But when people start throwing extremely cheap insults around like there's no tomorrow, a thread doesn't fucking need to be open. It's just a monstrous troll-catcher. It serves to degrade what we do at MeFi. I read through those 740-something comments, and there's no discussion left. There wasn't really one to begin with.

It is possible to have a well-reasoned discussion about this stuff. That thread ain't doing it.
posted by koeselitz at 7:56 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

...and, Matt, if you're looking for suggestions, I'd close that thread and let somebody else start a new one. Trolls tend to get confused when you do that.
posted by koeselitz at 7:59 AM on November 4, 2006

It needs to remain open, lest the triumphalist masturbation of the ranting atheists be thwarted. If they can't build their straw men in this harvest season, they'll get rhetorical blue balls.

And yeah, all the actual content of the incident has already been hashed and rehashed, like the worst diner potatoes. But closing the thread would obviously be the same thing as making everyone in America say "Merry Christmas" by force of jackboot for those who still claim that konolia said that homosexuals are pedophiles, even after she clarified that she didn't.

Or is it that the thread shouldn't be closed because everyone is still abiding by the doctrine of not attacking other members of the site, that injunction written right next to the comment box? Surely, none of those arguing against the closure here aren't doing so because they're enjoying the exercise of their asshole gland, and unable to make rational decisions about the good of the community.

And how will people of faith who disagree with Ted Haggard's hypocracy learn that Metafilter is a welcoming and rational place with no unfair attacks if that thread doesn't remain there for them to see? Truly, those would be special rights to feel that they could participate without being attacked by the spittle-flecked and red-eyed. And those people from communities of faith who might have more to add to the conversation should be driven away by repeated straw men, because the outrage over Haggard and the shadenfreude justifies it. Truly, having that thread open makes us all better people and a better community.
posted by klangklangston at 8:00 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

(And I misspelled hypocricy. Doh.)
posted by klangklangston at 8:02 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

dw, who's holding a gun to your head and forcing to read the comments?

In my case, it's Matt's implementation of "My Comments", that doesn't let me remove something that I posted in 980 comments ago.
posted by smackfu at 8:05 AM on November 4, 2006

and some liberal defends her because you have to respect people's sincere beliefs

Oh bite me Matteo. I was defending her from the accusation that she was actively trying to insult people. I know it might be a subtle distinction, but make an effort.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:06 AM on November 4, 2006

(And I misspelled hypocricy. Doh.)
And again...
posted by matthewr at 8:14 AM on November 4, 2006

Were the img tag around that thread would probably have degenerated into ceiling cat hilarity by now.
posted by casarkos at 8:16 AM on November 4, 2006

you do see that communities of faith who might have more to add to the conversation are inconsistent with the ideal that Metafilter is a welcoming and rational place with no unfair attacks...right? the whole reason these conversations degenerate is the failure of attempt at rational discussion with those for whom membership in the saviour club requires the mystical suspension of rationality itself...but metafilter is just a demonstration of this lack of common ground, not the basis for it...
posted by troybob at 8:17 AM on November 4, 2006

*makes an effort*

no, sorry, tough shit.

"she was actively trying to insult people"? I hope to God (heh) that she was doing just that. if she wasn't, then she simply lacks the brains to figure out that comparing homosexuality with pedophilia might indeed being problematic in the world outside of, say, some evangelical Sunday school coffee break.

with a statement like that, she's either homophobic or dumb. I choose to think she's not dumb, you're of course free to have different ideas. but then, I've never been a fan of bending over backwards to accomodate the delicate sensibilities of people who actively work to take away rights from other people, in God's name, of course.
posted by matteo at 8:19 AM on November 4, 2006

troybob: "the whole reason these conversations degenerate is the failure of attempt at rational discussion with those for whom membership in the saviour club requires the mystical suspension of rationality itself..."

Exactly. Those irrational religious people. They forced us to call them mean names.
posted by koeselitz at 8:26 AM on November 4, 2006

Were the img tag around that thread would probably have degenerated into ceiling cat hilarity by now.

And yet you People continue to doubt My Will, Purpose and everlasting Love for each and every one of you. Though My ways may be inscrutable, never be in doubt of my Love.

Really, it's for your own Good.
posted by loquacious at 8:32 AM on November 4, 2006

Also, that thread is a monster. I had to stop about 2/3rds of the way through for a nourishing and revitalizing burrito break.

And I would have missed Konolia's "gaydar" comments if it weren't for this callout. Holy. Shit.
posted by loquacious at 8:34 AM on November 4, 2006

I've never been a fan of bending over backwards to accomodate the delicate sensibilities of people who actively work to take away rights from other people, in God's name, of course.

matteo, konolia is bending herself into knots trying to justify something she knows isn't true, which is what's saddening and frustrating to me.
posted by jonmc at 8:37 AM on November 4, 2006

"the whole reason these conversations degenerate is the failure of attempt at rational discussion with those for whom membership in the saviour club requires the mystical suspension of rationality itself..."

The whole reason these conversations fail is that there are plenty of good people in MeFi, but there are also plenty of incredible assholes. From my experience, those assholes distribute pretty evenly across theist/atheist, fat/skinny, male/female, and pretty much any other lines.
posted by bugbread at 8:40 AM on November 4, 2006

Do you have some crazy bug in your browser that automatically opens that thread and forces you to sit and read through it? Otherwise, just don't open it. Its not hard. In fact, maybe you should just skip MeFi altogether until its off the front page. Maybe longer.
posted by fenriq at 8:40 AM on November 4, 2006

But closing the thread would obviously be the same thing as making everyone in America say "Merry Christmas" by force of jackboot for those who still claim that konolia said that homosexuals are pedophiles, even after she clarified that she didn't.

I'm sorry, but she did equate the two, despite later sorta-maybe backpedalling.

As many noted, her comment was specious and hateful, and it doesn't matter much to me, and I suspect others, that her intentions may — in her mind — be to save me from her idea of theist punishment. I don't believe that her intentions here rephrase or repurpose her original statement.

If she came to the thread to have a dialogue, then hopefully she came away from it understanding that gays are not pedophiles, that reinforcing this quite common, stereotypical comparison is actually very hurtful, and that this kind of commentary will get an according response. Rather, from reading subsequent comments, I suspect she was there to proselytize.

I don't believe pointing out to her that her comment was hurtful is nearly as dramatic as you make it sound. I could care less if you say, "Merry Christmas", clad in jackboots or slippers. Rather, were you to equate homosexuality with pederasty as she did, I would ask you if you truly understand the implications and consequences of what you are saying, even if it is within your own moral context.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:41 AM on November 4, 2006

"you do see that communities of faith who might have more to add to the conversation are inconsistent with the ideal that Metafilter is a welcoming and rational place with no unfair attacks...right?"

No, it's not. While faith is at its core irrational, that doesn't mean that the decisions and beliefs that come from faith are de facto irrational any more than Plato's Republic. And the thought that you can't have a rational discussion with a person of faith shows you to either be ignorant or vastly overestimating your own rationality.
It's a common assumption here, and an absolutely wrong one.
posted by klangklangston at 8:43 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Wow, I skipped that thread the first time... kinda wish I hadn't peeked in now.

There's a lot of ugly in there, from both side.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:48 AM on November 4, 2006

Yeah, konolia's "gaydar" quip went over about as well as a white person walking up to the Wu-Tang Clan asking "so, what are you negros up to these days" -- not really insulting, but clearly showing someone venturing into territory she thinks she knows, but is in reality clueless about.

The subsequent "homosexuality is morally equivalent to pedophilia" suggestion was just incredibly dumb. I don't think there's a possible comeback for that.
posted by clevershark at 8:48 AM on November 4, 2006

"I'm sorry, but she did equate the two, despite later sorta-maybe backpedalling. "

I disagree, but I don't have any interest in being offended. She "equated" them under the umbrella of "things that are sins," which includes, what, shoplifting and public spitting? And I realize that she did so in a rhetorically lazy way, and I don't put much stock in her ability to actually argue, but that was pointed out again and again.

But, even granting that she did, that point was well rebutted by the next hundred comments. Did we gain anything by dirtynumbangelboy's personal attacks? At what point can you stop the high-fiving over putting that ignorant savage in her place and return to something resembling a conversation?
Or is it always about the triumph of outrage?
posted by klangklangston at 8:49 AM on November 4, 2006

what klang said.
posted by jonmc at 8:57 AM on November 4, 2006

Konolia was much more hateful than this, right?

Or would it force you to realize that you're choking on a fucking lie, and clinging to a fucking retarded interpretation of a text in order to shelter yourself from anything resembling independent thought, you fat fucking bigoted small-minded homophobic bitch?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy
posted by leftcoastbob at 9:03 AM on November 4, 2006

well, leftcoastbob, dirtynumbangelboy is living directly in the sights of the ideas konolia is (however tacitly) supporting. So I can't really blame him for being irked.
posted by jonmc at 9:04 AM on November 4, 2006

And when that's pointed out, inevitably some Christian asks for special rights -- close down the thread it's hurting our tender Christian sensibilities. (and there's a war on Christmas!)>

I have a friend who believes in Jesus and all the jazz, but doesn't refer to herself as a Christian because of connotations exactly like that it brings.

Personally, I think all groups at some point ask for special rights so I don't care. Most the time it is about perception- an evangelist is going to perceive an atheist asking to remove the "One nation, Under God" part from the Pledge as asking for special rights while the atheist will not. The same is visa-versa. I'm always in the right when I'm asking for something, but you're in the wrong when you ask. Duh.
posted by jmd82 at 9:08 AM on November 4, 2006

I've never been a fan of bending over backwards to accomodate the delicate sensibilities of people who actively work to take away rights from other people

I didn't think there was a more militant atheist with less interest in protecting the sensibilities of fundamentalists out there than I am, but goddamn, this kind of comment:

Konolia is a fat, gluttonous hypocritical waste of flesh

is repulsive.

That frothing, hysterical pile-on brought honor to nobody.

Or, you know, what klang said.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:13 AM on November 4, 2006

I never said that the subset of gay people and the subset of pedophiles were the same people. A careful dispassionate reading of what I posted will confirm that.

But as emotions are running pretty high on that thread, I can understand the confusion.

Carry on.
posted by konolia at 9:16 AM on November 4, 2006

Well it basically comes down to "what the f*ck did she expect", really.

If there was a thread about Martin Luther King jr. and someone started openly wondering if MLK "would spend his days smoking crack and drinking malt liquor like those guys in that neighborhood I go through every day on my ride to work" in a comment, you'd pretty much expect all hell to break loose, even if it were true that the poster actually went through a neighborhood where that openly took place every day on his ride to work.
posted by clevershark at 9:21 AM on November 4, 2006

I never said that the subset of gay people and the subset of pedophiles were the same people.

But you did say that homosexual sex and pedophilia were morally equivalent.
posted by clevershark at 9:23 AM on November 4, 2006

I haven't had a bottle of malt liquor since Crazy Horse went off the market. Maybe I should pick up a bottle of malt liquor this morning. And them post on Metafilter.
posted by LarryC at 9:27 AM on November 4, 2006

Carefully dispassionate like saying people are GOING TO HELL? Dispassionate like that?

The obvious hatred of the rest of humanity doesn't get me as riled up as does the obvious hypocrisy. If you want to be a hate monger, at least stand the fuck up and be honest about it.
posted by OmieWise at 9:29 AM on November 4, 2006

Hey, dumbass.
You still haven't answered the fucking question.
Where did Jesus say that gay == bad?
Where?
Have the courage of your convictions or for fuck's sake, go fucking shoot yourself and save us all.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy

well, leftcoastbob, dirtynumbangelboy is living directly in the sights of the ideas konolia is (however tacitly) supporting. So I can't really blame him for being irked.
posted by jonmc

Yeah, jonmc, I can see your point.
posted by leftcoastbob at 9:37 AM on November 4, 2006

You know who else says people are going to hell?

Satan
posted by boaz at 9:38 AM on November 4, 2006

konolia writes "But as emotions are running pretty high on that thread, I can understand the confusion.

"Carry on."

Emotions are running high, konolia, because of the fucking filth that you and your ilk spew on a daily basis. The fucking filth that tries to ensure that me, and people like me, will permanently be second-class. That we will be subject to discrimination. That gay kids can be brainwashed, electroshocked, and forced to not be who they are.

And you still haven't answered the fucking question.


And to everyone else... when someone's views, hypocrisy, and lies are explicitly trying to make you a second-class citizen (at best), when there is a systematic attempt to strip you of rights and dignity, I'd like to see how the fuck you respond.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:39 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Just to bring a little fucking levity back, here's the best Haggard headline I've seen today:

Haggard sex allegations could rub off on election returns


posted by CunningLinguist at 9:40 AM on November 4, 2006

Yeah, jonmc, I can see your point.

And I see yours, and his and hers. and it all drives you crazy after awhile, so you say 'fuck it,' and go bowling.
posted by jonmc at 9:40 AM on November 4, 2006

leftcoastbob writes "Yeah, jonmc, I can see your point."

See above. Every single one of these wilfully ignorant bigoted fuckheads should just shoot themselves and save the rest of us the fucking pain of having to fucking deal with them.

Are you gay, bob? I don't seem to recall that you are. You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of such reckless hate.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:41 AM on November 4, 2006

Just to clarify, did Konolia actually say gays are going to hell in the thread? All I see is you go to hell if you don't repent- a mild of difference between the two.
posted by jmd82 at 9:44 AM on November 4, 2006

Maybe I should pick up a bottle of malt liquor this morning. And them post on Metafilter.

I strongly support this sentiment. May I interest you in a High Gravity malt, an Ice or would you prefer something more traditional like an Olde English 800, Cobra or a Colt 45? Or are you looking for a more upscale urban experience in the form of a Phat Boy, Brick House or Viper?
posted by loquacious at 9:46 AM on November 4, 2006

Doh, a mile of difference...
posted by jmd82 at 9:46 AM on November 4, 2006

What's the fucking difference? Those of us who actually use our brains for the purpose God gave them aren't going to bother with repentance, because it's simply not applicable.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:46 AM on November 4, 2006

um, it's rather disingenuous to invoke one's jesus mumbo-jumbo as if it were logical discourse and then to fault others for failing at careful, dispassionate reading...and it's a plain lie to say that drawing a parallel between homosexuality and pedophilia was not meant to imply a connection...religious belief itself has been founded on connective threads more precarious than that...
posted by troybob at 9:47 AM on November 4, 2006

I like Merle Haggard, don't understand what all the fuss is about. [sings] I'm proud to be an Okie from Musgokee, the place where even squares can have a ball....
posted by fixedgear at 9:49 AM on November 4, 2006

...fucking...
...fucking...fucking...
...fucking...fucking...fucking...
...fucking...
...fucking...
...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:30 AM JST on November 4

...fucking...fucking...fucking...
...FUCK...FUCKED...fucking...
...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:28 PM JST on November 4

...fucking...FUCING...fucking...fucking...fucking...fucking...
...fucking...fucking...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:38 PM JST on November 4

...fucking...
...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:54 PM JST on November 4

...fucking...
...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:24 PM JST on November 4

...fucking...
...fuck's...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:22 AM JST on November 5

...fucking...fucking...
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:26 AM JST on November 5

I only skimmed through the thread, but I take it that it has something to do with fucking?
posted by bugbread at 9:49 AM on November 4, 2006

Who doesn't like fucking?

Hey, get off my leg.
posted by loquacious at 9:52 AM on November 4, 2006

Are you gay, bob? I don't seem to recall that you are. You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of such reckless hate.

I'm not gay either, dirtynumb, but I've been on the recieving end of homophobia myself. I went to visit a freind on his college campus once. My friends roommate, Jimmy, was flamingly and flamboyantly gay, but a nice guy. I was early so I sat next to his door and waited. What people passing by saw was a young skinny guy sitting outside a known gay man's room. "Hey, Jimmy you fuckin' faggott," one guy muttered. Other people gave me stares of disgust. And this was just for sitting down.

Then there was the weird incident a few weeks ago where I was crossing the street to the deli and an old guy asked me where the nearest PATH train was. "Christopher Street" [a well known gay cruising strip] I said. He made a limp wrist and said,"but that's the gay train." "That's where it is," I said and walked off. I dunno whether he thought I was gay and was trying to bait me or whether I was a fellow homophobe or what. And I've taken any number of shots from white folks and straight folks for not restricting who I spend my time with. So yeah, maybe I have some idea, my friend.

Look, maybe I'm in a unique position. Between the flat-out haters and flat-out embracers there's a whole lotta confused and muddleheaded people. If I can be in a position to change some minds rather then just keep on balkanizing things, I'm gonna try. call me crazy.
posted by jonmc at 9:55 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

You must take the Gay Train
To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem

If you miss the Gay Train
You'll find you've missed the quickest way to Harlem

Hurry, get on, now, it's coming
Listen to those rails a-thrumming (All Board!)

Get on the Gay Train
Soon you will be on Sugar Hill in Harlem

And bugbread, my cursory glance lead me to believe it was about retardation.
Get a thesaurus, people.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:02 AM on November 4, 2006

I am a thesaurus person.
posted by loquacious at 10:04 AM on November 4, 2006

I think this thread and that thread both need more comments about how bad they are. I'll go first seventy-seventh: what a train wreck.
posted by mattbucher at 10:19 AM on November 4, 2006

I wish the election would just get over with. People sure are riled up.
posted by smackfu at 10:26 AM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

That thread is like the 9622 of dead seriousness and rage.

There are some interesting exchanges to be found, but the whole thing does speak to the utility of people eventually being allowed to devolve into surrealistic thread-pissing and, yes, posting pictures of Ceiling Cat.
posted by furiousthought at 10:28 AM on November 4, 2006

What's the fucking difference? Those of us who actually use our brains for the purpose God gave them aren't going to bother with repentance, because it's simply not applicable.

Any it makes no sense, why? While the gay-hate is questionable, I think the call for repentance in the NT is quite obvious. If we the brain God gave us and claim to follow Christ, I think repentance is very applicable. Of course, if you're not Christian (I haven't followed this enough to know who is and isn't anymore), this is all irrelevant.
posted by jmd82 at 10:30 AM on November 4, 2006

MetaFilter: the same arguments repeated over and over again.
posted by SenshiNeko at 10:33 AM on November 4, 2006

Are you gay, bob? I don't seem to recall that you are. You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of such reckless hate.

I'm not gay, but I am Black, so can *I* chime in?

You do yourself no good by arguing with these people, especially on the internet, most especially using the hate you expressed.

You're not going to change peoples minds that way. And that is the point isn't it, to at least get the people who hate you for your color/sex/orientation to at least pause and think "hey, that person doesn't fit the stereotype, what do I do NOW"?

The ONLY thing you can do is live your life in such a way that if others followed your lead, the world would be a better place. Either people will see that or they won't, but you can't fix, save or change them by yelling at them, calling them names and advocating they be killed. I understand you're angry and fed up with that crap you get 'cause dammit it isn't right and no one should have to deal with it.

But we don't live in fairy tales and you're going to have make some sort of peace with that fact that people hate and despise you for something you can't and don't want to change.

Ask yourself, about that thread, what has truly be solved? Each "side" is going thinking/feeling as they did before, but with a bit more venom. Will that help gay people be recognized as equal? Is that what you want?

Talk, don't shout, knowing that you are no less of a human being and maybe they'll be able to see that. Not all the time or even when you want them to, but that's not your issue or problem. Talk and move on.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:42 AM on November 4, 2006 [5 favorites]

Hey, get off my leg.

Ah, you like foreplay....
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:44 AM on November 4, 2006

You want to pick up your bat and ball and go home, that's fine. But you don't get to call the game because it's not going the way you'd hoped.

This has to be the whiniest, most especially stupidist callout I've seen in months.

I dunno. I think it should be closed because it's going nowhere. It's been going nowhere for a while, now. Just a breeding ground for further hostility and axe grinding. Of course, none of that is stopping me from refreshing my browser every few minutes. Ha!

Of course, this all could have been averted with the img tag.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:47 AM on November 4, 2006

Alvy Ampersand: "And bugbread, my cursory glance lead me to believe it was about retardation."

Nope. Even when charitably accepting "obtuse" as being the same as "retarded", we just get:

...moron.
...moron.
...moron.
...retarded moron.
...moron.
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:30 AM JST on November 4}

...moron?
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:28 PM JST on November 4}

...retarded
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:38 PM JST on November 4}

...obtuse...
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:54 PM JST on November 4}

...dumbass.
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:22 AM JST on November 5}

...mildly retarded...
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:26 AM JST on November 5}

...stupid.
...stupidity.
_{posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:43 AM JST on November 5}

So fucking it is.
posted by bugbread at 10:55 AM on November 4, 2006

And I thought I was having a slow Saturday. Wow.

I stand corrected.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:59 AM on November 4, 2006

"And I thought I was having a slow Saturday. Wow.

I stand corrected."

Kneel before the power of the weekend night shift.
posted by bugbread at 11:03 AM on November 4, 2006

THIS THREAD HAS BEEN SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION
posted by quonsar at 11:03 AM on November 4, 2006

The only reason I like threads like that is it allows me to realize all the people I should choose to ignore in the future.
posted by Falconetti at 11:05 AM on November 4, 2006

quonsar writes "THIS THREAD HAS BEEN SANITIZED FOR YOUR PROTECTION"

I was wondering where the paper ring surrounding my monitor had come from!
posted by clevershark at 11:09 AM on November 4, 2006

Are you gay, bob? I don't seem to recall that you are. You cannot possibly understand what it is like to be on the receiving end of such reckless hate.

Since I'm not gay, I'll stop trying to get fellow Catholics to vote pro-gay, not be bigoted, etc, because I'm not gay and thus can't relate to your plight. Cause, ya know, I've never received reckless hate. Ever.

Fuck it all. Unless you're straight, Caucasian, and Catholic, I no longer give a shit about you since I can't understand anything beyond myself.
posted by jmd82 at 11:22 AM on November 4, 2006

CunningLinguist writes "[saying] 'Konolia is a fat, gluttonous hypocritical waste of flesh'"is repulsive."

I agree, the personal attacks on Konolia go too far.

And to be honest, initially I wasn't too offended by Konolia saying that homosexuality and pedophilia are both sins; according to her world-view, they are, and according to that world-view, sins are equivalent: homosex is just as bad as, but not worse than, easting shrimp.

But then I got to thinking: we probably all agree that rapists are bad and that usurious money lenders are bad too.

But there's a particular rhetorical device of the bigot: he'll get up on his soapbox and draw us in by exclaiming rape or money-lending is bad (and we mentally nod in agreement) and then he'll go on to use our agreement to advance his bigotry, by talking about "wild-eyed drug-crazed Negro rapists" or "blood-sucking Jew money-lenders".

So perhaps Konolia's comment was entirely innocent, but I think it deserves some extra skepticism. We all want to protect our kids from pedophiles, so the Christian Right's equation of two particular sins (out of the whole myriad of sins they could be talking about) seems designed to get people riled up and angry about one thing (pedophilia) and then to direct their anger and hate against another (homosexuality).

And although in our majority white Christian heterosexual society, of course, the majority of pedophiles, rapists, and money lenders are white Christian heterosexuals, there are (a minority of) homosexual pedophiles, just as there exist "Negro" rapists and Jewish money-lenders.

But our society has matured to the point where we no longer tolerate bigots who conflate being black and being a rapist, or being Jewish and being a money-lender. We rightly reject that rhetorical device as solely the tool of bigots and hate-mongers.

If konolia had railed against Jews and money-lenders or "Negroes" and rapists (and I don't think she would, she's not that kind of bigot), no one here would have defended that or even tried to "understand" much less excuse the mind-set that caused her to spew such bile.

But somehow, it's still acceptable to get up on a podium and explicitly conflate homosexuality and pederasty. Knowing that conflating pushes a hot button, our fear of harm to our children. Knowing that most homosexuals aren't pederasts and most pederasts aren't homosexuals, it's still considered a-OK to get up and spew that sort of bigotry.

I take heart that in the last fifty years, we've marginalized and ostracized the bigots who seek to conflate money-lending and being Jewish, or raping and being black. In another fifty years, I hope the American people will be equally disgusted at anyone conflating homosexuality between consenting adults, with the rape of children.
posted by orthogonality at 11:25 AM on November 4, 2006 [7 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher writes "You do yourself no good by arguing with these people, especially on the internet, most especially using the hate you expressed."

Not hate. Rage. There is a difference.

jmd82 writes "Since I'm not gay, I'll stop trying to get fellow Catholics to vote pro-gay, not be bigoted, etc, because I'm not gay and thus can't relate to your plight. Cause, ya know, I've never received reckless hate. Ever."

I didn't at any point say you can't relate, so kindly do not put words in my mouth.

You cannot, however, truly understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of this bullshit--just like I, as a white male, cannot ever truly understand what it's like to be called a nigger, or what it's like to be female and suffer that discrimination.

Doesn't mean I can't fight for those things. Just means I will never truly grok them.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:27 AM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "Not hate. Rage. There is a difference."

True, but that doesn't really change Brandon Blatcher's argument: "You do yourself no good by arguing with these people, especially on the internet, most especially using the rage you expressed."
posted by bugbread at 11:38 AM on November 4, 2006

Fair enough dirty. I just don't see how being gay or not has any bearing on this. I think your idea "can't understand how it feels unless [etc etc etc]" does is reinforce our differences and give bigots an even bigger voice in the mainstream. I don't mean to come off as an asshole, but all your vitriolic voice does is give those who oppose you even more vigor and hatred. Then again, I don't know what else you ought to do.
posted by jmd82 at 11:43 AM on November 4, 2006

On preview:
It doesn't matter if your words are full of hate or rage. Reality is what matters is other's first impression of your voice.
posted by jmd82 at 11:45 AM on November 4, 2006

Ortho— Your last point was absolutely dead on. I only wish that was the way konolia had been addressed within that thread. It was exactly the rebuttal needed, and I hope that she sees it.
posted by klangklangston at 11:48 AM on November 4, 2006

I'm a little curious (not in the "I think it's fucking horrible and Matt is a dick and MetaFilter is managed shittily and I hate everyone!!" passive-aggressive sense of "curious" that is sometimes used on MeFi, but the old-fashioned literal meaning of "curious") why the Ted thread is still open but the "Doubt and disbelief on the rise in the US" thread was closed with "jesusfilter/atheistfilter - please go fight someplace else" as the reason for post deletion.
posted by bugbread at 12:07 PM on November 4, 2006

YOu wanna know why I used the pedo example? Because there was a thread about it a few posts up. That's it.

Happy now?
posted by konolia at 12:16 PM on November 4, 2006

YOu wanna know why I used the pedo example? Because there was a thread about it a few posts up. That's it. Happy now?

It's a pity that Moses was all "seriously, a nice round number would be better, trust me," because as I understand that in the first draft of the commandments, there was actually an 11th: Thou Shalt Not Be Insultingly Disingenuous. Then at least the rest of us would be spared this sort of bullshit.
posted by scody at 12:34 PM on November 4, 2006

No. The thread is cycling back on itself, repeating the same arguments and brickbats with new people. It's not going anywhere. I mean, the last 100 comments were centered around whether God hates shrimp. This thread is toast.

Why does a thread need to 'go' anywhere?
posted by delmoi at 12:41 PM on November 4, 2006

Also, I've seen threads do that in the past, cycle back through the same arguments with new people. It's annoying, but just relax and stop reading it. Are you trying to accomplish something in the thread? Don't bother.

why the Ted thread is still open but the "Doubt and disbelief on the rise in the US" thread was closed with "jesusfilter/atheistfilter - please go fight someplace else" as the reason for post deletion.

It would be a bit silly to close a thread with 800 comments
posted by delmoi at 12:43 PM on November 4, 2006

bugbread ...maybe beacause the doubt and disbelief post was turning into another yet another bevets thread.
posted by adamvasco at 12:44 PM on November 4, 2006

I agree, the personal attacks on Konolia go too far.

I totally agree with that. Way over the top. Konolia seems like a very nice person, and is a valued member of metafilter and metachat. Attacking her is just really lame. I think the people who did attack her must have been people who are not really 'into' metafilter that much, just passive lurkers.

People really need to not take discussions so personally. It's the reason we can't have "shiny" things around here, because people freak out and take things way to far.

Oh well.
posted by delmoi at 12:46 PM on November 4, 2006

...and unable to make rational decisions about the good of the community.

And how will people of faith who disagree with Ted Haggard's hypocracy learn that Metafilter is a welcoming and rational place with no unfair attacks....

The problem with rationality is that it is itself not rational, and can not be easily made so. If rationality forbids arguing in a circle (that is, assuming your conclusions in any way), then the validity of rationality itself, including and especially scientific rationality, can never be argued for by rational means. Many religious people, of which I am not one, appear to grasp this instinctively, if inarticulately, nor does an argument from faith necessarily suffer such a defect, and this compels attention to whatever they have to say, in my opinion.

MetaFilter is seething and practically boiling right now. I can't decide how much I think this reflects the state of the US in general, but it is disturbing and rather marvellous.
posted by jamjam at 12:50 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "Konolia seems like a very nice person"

She's also a homophobic, ignorant, and bigoted Bible-thumper. What, precisely, is your point?

delmoi writes "People really need to not take discussions so personally."

I beg your fucking pardon? This issue is personal.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:51 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "Konolia seems like a very nice person"

She's also a homophobic, ignorant, and bigoted Bible-thumper. What, precisely, is your point?

that is the point, my friend. generally decent people believe all kinds of indecent shit, which puts us in an odd position sometimes.
posted by jonmc at 12:58 PM on November 4, 2006

that is the point, my friend. generally decent people believe all kinds of indecent shit, which puts us in an odd position sometimes.

True that, jonmc.

Especially when we're members of a community. One we'd like to be something other than a bad version of "Lord of the Flies."
posted by felix betachat at 1:03 PM on November 4, 2006

I should note, though, that I have no idea what's even going on in that thread, since I certainly don't have time to to read 800 comments. There are over 70,000 words on that page, almost a novels length.
posted by delmoi at 1:04 PM on November 4, 2006

She's also a homophobic, ignorant, and bigoted Bible-thumper. What, precisely, is your point? I beg your fucking pardon? This issue is personal.

Well, I haven't read the thread, but my impression of her is that she does not actually hate gay people, although she does support gay-bashing republicans or whatever.

Obviously ranting and insulting people is not a good way to get your point across. did Konolia attack any member personally in that thread?
posted by delmoi at 1:07 PM on November 4, 2006

There are over 70,000 words on that page, almost a novels length.

I dare somebody to submit the whole thread to NaNoWriMo.
posted by Gator at 1:08 PM on November 4, 2006

jon, I have much less respect for you now than I used to. She, and her ilk, are dedicated to destroying intellectual discours, promoting ignorance, and fanning the flames of bigotry.

These are not 'decent' people. They are KKK members without the pointy hats.

And as far as your homophobic experience goes.. I'm sure it was unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to how an actual gay person feels when treated that way. You were insulted by these fuckers, yes. But they were attacking you on a perception only--easy for you to shrug off. They say that to us, and it attacks an integral part of who we are.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:09 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy I agree it is personal, though you seem a little half arsed about the whole thing. In your position you should go burn a damn church down. Feel your inner righteous rage, it rocks.
posted by econous at 1:09 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "Well, I haven't read the thread, but my impression of her is that she does not actually hate gay people, although she does support gay-bashing republicans or whatever."

And the difference is what, precisely? Not to Godwin, but: "Some of my best friends are Jews..."

"I'm, not racist, but I support segregation."

You'd be one of the first to call bullshit on that, and you know it.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:11 PM on November 4, 2006

wtf superfluous comma
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:11 PM on November 4, 2006

econous writes "dirtynumbangelboy I agree it is personal, though you seem a little half arsed about the whole thing. In your position you should go burn a damn church down. Feel your inner righteous rage, it rocks."

I'm going to choose to believe that was a joke.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:12 PM on November 4, 2006

there are still people in that thread who refuse to believe that Haggard's been lying, even in the face of direct evidence from his own mouth--that alone should be enough to keep it open.

It's also still developing as a story--let the thread be where all the updates go.
posted by amberglow at 1:12 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

dirtynumbangelboy, your vitriol would go down a teensy bit easier for me if you didn't throw around "fat" and "retard" as insults. Besides being juvenile, they are both offensive to others that are far outside the scope of your narrow attack. I have seen enough people call a close family member who has autism a "retard" to know the pain that can cause and it bugs me when it is casually used. And the "fat" remarks seem obviously repellent. I wouldn't advocate censoring you or even complaining about it, but you seem to be blind to the way in which you are promulgating the very sort of activity you are complaining about. It is a different degree to be sure, but of the same kind.
posted by Falconetti at 1:18 PM on November 4, 2006

jon, I have much less respect for you now than I used to. She, and her ilk, are dedicated to destroying intellectual discours, promoting ignorance, and fanning the flames of bigotry.

dirtynumb, haven't you figured out that I'm not defending her, but using the fact that me and her have generally gotten along in the past as a wedge to just maybe change her way of thinking (and a lot of stuff from previous interactions tells me that just maybe it's possible, cuase if we give up on the idea of positive human change, we might as well just fuck it and go bowling as they say).

And as far as your homophobic experience goes.. I'm sure it was unpleasant, but it was nothing compared to how an actual gay person feels when treated that way. You were insulted by these fuckers, yes. But they were attacking you on a perception only--easy for you to shrug off. They say that to us, and it attacks an integral part of who we are.

What, if I had yelled 'hey, I'm not gay!" It would've stopped those guys from kicking my ass if I felt like it. And, FWIW, as somebody who cares about his friends and relatives who happen to be gay, it's an attack on me, too. (and FWIW, I've described gay experiences of my own in online forums and konolia didn't give me any shit about it, so like I said, just maybe...)
posted by jonmc at 1:20 PM on November 4, 2006

Falconetti writes "dirtynumbangelboy, your vitriol would go down a teensy bit easier for me if you didn't throw around 'fat' and 'retard' as insults. "

I suggest that you read my comment about being fat. I'll reproduce it here to make it easier:

"Still, my point stands. But just in case anyone wants to quote out of context:

Nothing wrong with being fat. Everything wrong with it when gluttony is a sin and you carp endlessly about everyone else's sins."

As for 'retard'... she is socially and intelectually retarded, as in 'stunted'.

jonmc writes "it's an attack on me, too. "

With all due respect, jon, and as much as it's important that straight people are on our side, it's not the same.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:26 PM on November 4, 2006

Missed your clarification in the morass, although your explanations are pretty disingenuous.
posted by Falconetti at 1:28 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumb, so if theoretically, if those guys glaring at me had decided to elevate things to throwing punches, it wouldn't have been a gay-bashing, just a fight?
posted by jonmc at 1:29 PM on November 4, 2006

Falconetti, it's not disingenuous. You can believe so if you wish, but you are incorrect.

jonmc.. gaybashing would well have been the motivation, but you are completely missing the point.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:54 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy, I think jonmc has stated elsewhere that he is bisexual. Of course he can speak for himself on that point.

Your beef is with me*. Leave him alone.

*actually, who I represent. If you are trying to hurt or upset me it isn't working, sorry. But no sense lashing out at others on these threads, 'k?
posted by konolia at 1:55 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "As for 'retard'... she is socially and intelectually retarded, as in 'stunted'."

What a fucking queer defense of using the word "retard" as an insult.
posted by bugbread at 1:57 PM on November 4, 2006

Just out of curiosity, is the Haggard thread setting a MeFi record? Any other thread get any more comments?
posted by SBMike at 2:02 PM on November 4, 2006

*: Does this mean you believe you speak for God?
posted by ltracey at 2:03 PM on November 4, 2006

It was a joke. I can only hope the mean girl didn't make you cry. With all the shrillness here I imagine she probably did, which leaves me feeling a little heart ache for both of you. Empathy can suck.
posted by econous at 2:04 PM on November 4, 2006

The bible says that we are Christ's ambassadors, so if that is what you meant, then I guess yes.
posted by konolia at 2:07 PM on November 4, 2006

Maybe I should rephrase that. His beef is with God, and I'm God's servant. Kinda like you getting mad with a walmart employee when they are only following walmart policy on something.

I'm just God's clerk, in other words.
posted by konolia at 2:09 PM on November 4, 2006

Typewriter bangers on
You're all just hangers on
Everyone's human 'cept Jools and Jim
posted by jonmc at 2:10 PM on November 4, 2006

So you were only following orders.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:12 PM on November 4, 2006 [3 favorites]

SBMike : "Just out of curiosity, is the Haggard thread setting a MeFi record? Any other thread get any more comments?"

1729 comments (but the rules were a little different back then: no automatic 30 day cutoff).
posted by bugbread at 2:12 PM on November 4, 2006

konolia writes "Your beef is with me*. Leave him alone."

And you still haven't answered the fucking question, you hypocritical fuck.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:21 PM on November 4, 2006

Seriously, Konolia is why Usenet has killfiles. You're talking to a brick wall. It doesn't matter if the mortar is religion or medication; the more you bang your head against it, the more it's going to hurt.

Because she's "polite", some people assume she'll be more likely to one day see a different point of view. That's like assuming that a homeless guy on the subway raving about the rapture would be less crazy if he just had a nice suit on.

dirtynumbangelboy, walk away from it. You have nothing left to gain whatsoever.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:22 PM on November 4, 2006

The "talking to a brick wall" issue goes both ways on this.

Konolia, you are never going to be able to show dirtynumbangelboy a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.
Dirtynumbangelboy, you are never going to be able to show konolia a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.

Neither of you have anything to gain from it.
posted by bugbread at 2:26 PM on November 4, 2006

"Just out of curiosity, is the Haggard thread setting a MeFi record? Any other thread get any more comments?"

It still has a ways to go to beat this one, too.

I think it should stay open for thirty days.
posted by owhydididoit at 2:30 PM on November 4, 2006

The bible says that we are Christ's ambassadors,

The bible also says that women should not teach men but should instead remain silent. Just sayin'
posted by boaz at 2:31 PM on November 4, 2006

bugbread writes "Konolia, you are never going to be able to show dirtynumbangelboy a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall."

If you cannot see a fundamental difference between her position and mine, you're being just as wilfullyignorant and obtuse as she is.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:32 PM on November 4, 2006

I don't know, Armitage Shanks, I think most people on Metafilter, certainly the high-profile users, have pretty unshakeable beliefs about things like politics and religion. I don't think konolia needs to be be singled out. In a choice between polite, friendly users with rigid views and loud, argumentative users with rigid views, I know which one I'd prefer.

I think konolia is a lot more tolerant of Metafilter than Metafilter is of her.
posted by matthewr at 2:33 PM on November 4, 2006

Maybe I should rephrase that. His beef is with God, and I'm God's servant.

Is his beef with God, though? I know he keeps asking you to show him where God says gay = wrong, and I haven't seen you do it yet. (If I missed it, someone please point me in that direction..I've read these as best I could, but very much could've missed something..) Until that happens, I'd say his beef is with you, no?
posted by inigo2 at 2:36 PM on November 4, 2006

If you can't see how you're being goaded into more and more incoherent ranting, which has no effect whatsoever on the target of your rants, while at the same time losing you the support of people who actually do agree with your position, you're also being obtuse.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:39 PM on November 4, 2006

Oops, the above is a reply to "f you cannot see a fundamental difference between her position and mine,..."
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:40 PM on November 4, 2006

Konolia, you are never going to be able to show dirtynumbangelboy a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.
Dirtynumbangelboy, you are never going to be able to show konolia a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.

Our guests today, two brick walls, on the next Metafilter...
posted by jonmc at 2:40 PM on November 4, 2006

And you still haven't answered the fucking question, you hypocritical fuck.

Lord, go take a breather. Your tone and tactics are putting konolia in a better light, which given her deranged ideas is a pretty impressive accomplishment.
posted by xmutex at 2:43 PM on November 4, 2006

I think konolia is a lot more tolerant of Metafilter than Metafilter is of her.

Sure, if politely telling people that their lives are an abomination before God that will eventually send them to hell counts as tolerant, then she's frigging Gandhi.

Well, except she's not going to hell like Gandhi, of course.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 2:45 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

dirtynumbangelboy : "If you cannot see a fundamental difference between her position and mine, you're being just as wilfullyignorant and obtuse as she is."

I can see a fundamental difference in her position and yours. I didn't say you think the same things, the same way, or for the same reasons. But, for different reasons, different backgrounds, different stances, different rationales, and the like, you share several traits (you're both human, you both speak English, you both comment on Metafilter, etc.), and one of those traits is that nothing either of you will say will change the others' mind. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, or a good thing. But it's true.

Do you really, honestly, believe that there's something that you could say that would change her mind?

Do you really, honestly, believe that there's something she could say that would change your mind?

Both of you are wasting your time arguing with eachother. Saying that does not mean that I "cannot see a fundamental difference between her position and yours". It just means that I can see at least one non-fundamental similarity between them.
posted by bugbread at 2:45 PM on November 4, 2006

I'm quickly sinking into outrage fatigue here. Konolia's posts, in this and the Haggard thread, seem to have this pattern (mainly, not exclusively):

1. come into the thread and say something outrageous
2. leave for some time (sometimes several hours) while people debate what she said
3. come back and stir shit up again, sometimes by answering cherry-picked comments and failing to address sensible criticism
4. goto 2.

It seems clear to me that konolia just posts about "the gay issue" to get herself talked about and keep people from paying too much attention to the subject of the post, so that maybe the substantive elements of the actual post will get forgotten about, just the way Fox News kept the discussion of substantive topics out of the 2004 presidential election by parrotting outrageous talking points.
posted by clevershark at 2:46 PM on November 4, 2006

The Bible teaches that sex is for one man and one woman in marriage. God created it for procreation, pair bonding, and as symbolism of greater truths.(and yes, fun.) Jesus spoke against immorality, which the OT and the Jews of that time knew clearly meant fornication, adultery, homosexuality, incest and bestiality.

I could bring up Paul's teachings but he was specific he wanted to know what Jesus said. I believe the whole Bible is the word of God, though. Any way the first part of Romans is pretty clear about the Bible's take on homosexualilty.

Interestingly enough never a word is said about masturbation in old or new testament altho I suppose the Bible implies it is sin-Christians don't all agree on that point.
posted by konolia at 2:46 PM on November 4, 2006

My first reaction to all this, is I have a huge beef with you and yours as well, konolia.

What your words "represent" is absolutely the worst kind of bigotry and hatred.

Your ignorant views are not Christian in any way. Please stop trying to represent them as such.

On preview, I do have empathy for you, and it's obvious you are in fact actually hurting. Unfortunately, you really have absolutely no clue what Christianity is all about. For you God = Walmart. A corporation in the sky you merely take orders from, mindlessly, clerklike. No responsibility.

That would be merely a curious and minor tragedy, were it not for the fact that you and yours are hurting other feeling beings in your steadfast ignorance.

I wish better for you than what you are giving others, here and I suspect elsewhere. I wish love and comfort for you personally, in place of the intolerance you breathe in every word toward the eternal other. That intolerance and rigidity, if not hate, is something you appear to have personally suffered yourself in some profound form.

I wish you well.

And dirtynumangelboy, don't sweat it. Your rage is understandable, justified, and will eventually prevail over stupidity. I'm just sorry it seems to take forever. Don't take it all personally, if you can. You are dealing with a lot of hidden layers, and heavily defended pain in other humans which are actually at some level decent people.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:49 PM on November 4, 2006

Actually this thread is making me wonder -- what passages in the Bible condemn pedophilia specifically? I don't mean incest -- that's covered well enough.
posted by clevershark at 2:50 PM on November 4, 2006

konolia writes "Jesus spoke against immorality, which the OT and the Jews of that time knew clearly meant fornication, adultery, homosexuality, incest and bestiality. "

On what do you base this? Where, precisely, did Jesus condemn homosexuality?

Oh, right... he didn't. He did have a lot of thigns to say about feeding and clothing the poor, about not judging, about motes and beams, and so forth.

Fuck off, you pathetic little shit. You are no more Christian than Osama bin Laden is.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:58 PM on November 4, 2006

bugbread writes "Do you really, honestly, believe that there's something that you could say that would change her mind?"

Possibly. It is, however, cathartic to rage against her. I have tried the eloquent and reasoned approach with her, but what someone else said really rings true: she does not fundamentally believe that homosexuals are actually human beings. We aren't real. Therefore, this 'pain and suffering' we speak of to her simply does not register.

She is a fucking moron. Period.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:00 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "what someone else said really rings true: she does not fundamentally believe that homosexuals are actually human beings. We aren't real. Therefore, this 'pain and suffering' we speak of to her simply does not register."

That doesn't ring true to me. From what I've seen her post, it seems more that she thinks you're human, but unrepentant sinners, and the 'pain and suffering' you speak of to her is deserved somehow.

Not that that's any better, of course, but I've never heard her say anything that indicates she thinks y'all are ghosts or robots or figments of imagination or anything. I'd say she definitely considers homosexuals (and pedophiles, and people who have oral sex, and folks who say "goddamn" instead of "golly darn", and shrimp-eaters, and whoever else she feels incurs God's wrath) to be humans.
posted by bugbread at 3:06 PM on November 4, 2006

But, anyway, I digress. If catharsis is your objective, it might just be better to send email directly to her (just a suggestion, not a command/demand/order-disguised-as-suggestion).
posted by bugbread at 3:07 PM on November 4, 2006

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. -- Lev.20:13

Nothing wrong with pedophilia, as long as it's within marriage or with virgin girls(not boys(even virgin ones)) won through conquest. There's something in Romans 1 about that. Near the beginning.

I hoped my personal relationship with Jesus would never come out. It's rather different to konolia's.
posted by econous at 3:20 PM on November 4, 2006

econous: The question dirtynumb's been asking is "where did Jesus say...", not "where in the Bible does it say...". The closest you can get is perhaps "I have not come to take away any of the old laws" (or whatever the quote), but to my knowledge Jesus never directly addressed homosexuality.

econous : "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman"

Well, see, there's your problem right there. Men lie with women, usually, by putting their penises in their partners' vaginas. As long as you don't put your penis in another man's vagina, strictly speaking, you're cool.
posted by bugbread at 3:29 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

did Konolia attack any member personally in that thread?

I don't know about you or your sex life (nor is it my business), but I was lumped in with pedophiles on the basis of who I choose to sleep with.

I think most reasonable people would consider being called the equivalent of a child rapist — what Konolia did — pretty offensive.

Again, I can't and won't speak for everyone on that score, but in any case, it's probably not something Jesus did or would do.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:30 PM on November 4, 2006

Maybe it's an injunction against bisexuals who like to have anal sex with both men and women while being the "active" partner on both occasions.
posted by clevershark at 3:32 PM on November 4, 2006

I only skimmed through the thread, but I take it that it has something to do with fucking?

Only 14 fucks in this thread by DNAB. His ratio may be slipping.
posted by Kwantsar at 3:40 PM on November 4, 2006

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

There.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:53 PM on November 4, 2006

Bugger, got my pedo reference wasn't Roman 1 it was numbers.

In reference to the children of the Midianites:
Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man. -- Num 17-18

bugbread even literalism has limits, so the vag buisness is a red herring. Though perhaps the whole thing has been about post-op trannies all this bloody time? I require meditation on this.

As for those gays, seems Jesus was a bit of a liberal for the times. Certainly nothing like his old man, and didn't seem to give a rats arse about homos one way or the other. Other than the non-specific love vibe he gave out.
posted by econous at 4:01 PM on November 4, 2006

Again, I thought I was having a slow Saturday... unless those were just copied and pasted, in which case, -42 Angry Cred points.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 4:02 PM on November 4, 2006

Well, Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He doesn't seem to have been the judgemental type, except for those naughty money-changers who set up shop in the temple.
posted by clevershark at 4:15 PM on November 4, 2006

did Konolia attack any member personally in that thread?

No, she attacked all the gay people in that thread collectively. Which is better how, again?

Look, I'm perfectly happy ignoring moronic fundamentalist "I'm just God's clerk" stuff; I've done it all my life, and stay away from konolia here as much as I can. But when folks like jonmc jump in to defend her as "decent" and "well-meaning," I think it's very reasonable for the gay folks here to note just how much it strikes us as bullshit that there's anything decent or well-meaning about telling someone they're going to hell because of who they are.

Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining, ok?
posted by mediareport at 4:19 PM on November 4, 2006

I agree with clevershark. Of course Jesus wasn't judgmental. He married Mary Magdalen and his descendants live in France. Or something like that. Didn't you read The Da Vinci Code? Keep up people.

I betcha Mary Magdalen was a hot piece of ass.
posted by TrolleyOffTheTracks at 4:30 PM on November 4, 2006

Well, Jesus hung out with prostitutes and tax collectors. He doesn't seem to have been the judgemental type, except for those naughty money-changers who set up shop in the temple.

Well, yea, he did hang out with the peeps. Heck, He didn't even talk a lot of smack in the presence of Satan! He was all, "Meh, no thanks" and went about His walk. At the same time, he also told them to repent so they didn't get a totally free ride. In the end, I tend to think His message was one of mercy & forgiveness rather than condemnation.
posted by jmd82 at 4:41 PM on November 4, 2006

In your position you should go burn a damn church down. Feel your inner righteous rage, it rocks.

We're not animals like them--they bomb gay bars and abortion clinics and physically attack us all the time. (How's that for righteous?)
posted by amberglow at 4:51 PM on November 4, 2006

Maybe I should rephrase that. His beef is with God, and I'm God's servant. Kinda like you getting mad with a walmart employee when they are only following walmart policy on something.

This is a bit disingenuous, you can't really shrug off your own responsibility for your own actions that way. There was an askme long ago about some guy's wife who was physically assaulted by a walmart security guard, after being accused of switching the bar codes on a pack of DVDs.

The first problem is that the guard was almost certainly misinterpreting walmart's policy. In almost all cases big stores forbid their employees from physically assaulting suspected shop-lifters, so he would actually have been violating the policy, not supporting it. So who's fault is it then? It's obviously the guards fault. He misinterpreted walmart's policy.

So it may be that you're misinterpreting gods word.

Secondly, even if it was walmarts policy, implementation of an immoral policy is still immoral. I mean that's just the nazi excuse "I was just following orders" it's lame. You, personally, are the only one responsible for your actions.

If you cannot see a fundamental difference between her position and mine, you're being just as wilfullyignorant and obtuse as she is. -- dnab

Are you retarded? If there were no difference between your positions, you wouldn't be having an argument. Duh. Obviously you think your right, and she thinks she's right. The problem with moral absolutists is that they all think they're right. If there is a moral absolute, it's silly to think any one person could be right about all of it.

Is his beef with God, though? I know he keeps asking you to show him where God says gay = wrong, and I haven't seen you do it yet. -- inigo2

The Bible teaches that sex is for one man and one woman in marriage. God created it for procreation, pair bonding, and as symbolism of greater truths.(and yes, fun.)-- konolia

Konolia, what people want from you here is simply to prove your assertion about the bible. Like where does the bible say that? As far as I know, there is only one denunciation of homosexuality in Leviticus, which is hardly relevant since they also say you can't wear clothes of two different types of fabric or eat shellfish in the same chapter If we go by Leviticus, then homosexuality is no more a sin then eating shellfish. It would hardly matter.

The problem here is that even within the context of the bible and Christianity, even accepting everything in the bible as literally true, you still aren't doing a good job of defending your position.

Actually this thread is making me wonder -- what passages in the Bible condemn pedophilia specifically? I don't mean incest -- that's covered well enough.

What makes you think it does? It doesn't seem like anyone worried about those things in those time periods. Girls would routinely get married at age 13 and so on.
posted by delmoi at 5:04 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "What makes you think it does?"

I think it's one of those things that are always assumed, but when I thought about it I couldn't remember any passage that specifically mentioned it.
posted by clevershark at 5:14 PM on November 4, 2006

konolia writes: Interestingly enough never a word is said about masturbation in old or new testament altho I suppose the Bible implies it is sin-Christians don't all agree on that point.

See, here we go again -- you haven't read the Bible that you keep quoting (story of Onan). That's annoying.

Further, you still haven't answered a question from the original thread -- How do you feel about polygamy? Because that was an accepted, moral practice in Jesus' time. Does your husband have multiple wives? Otherwise, he's being sinful.

Another serious question -- you've mentioned that you have a degree in theology or religious studies. Is it from an accredited institution? Because quite frankly, you are really ignorant when it comes to the Bible and Christianity in general.

As for talking to brick walls, I agree that it's pointless, but I do think there's some value in pointing out the rank ignorance of people like konolia. Most of us have the shame to shut up when we know we're wrong. But fundies like her feel like they have a dispensation to spew their idiocy. Did the blue thread and some of my comments go too far in this regard? Probably. But when my departed grandfather used to drop n-bombs at the dinner table, we called him on it. We knew he wouldn't stop thinking that way, but he learned, eventually, that he'd be shunned for spewing his hate and ignorance, like a misbehaving puppy. Modern society shouldn't give the konolias of the world a pass on their ignorance just because it's "sincere" ignorance. And yeah, dirtynumbangelboy could tone it down, but unless he's actively supporting a politician who has vowed to take away the marital, social, and legal rights of Christians, he has every right to make the points he's making.
posted by bardic at 5:16 PM on November 4, 2006

I totally understand the rage about Konolia and her ilk's take on 1.) God, 2.) Christianity and 3.) homosexuality.

But gang, it's also time to realize that she's an attention whore. She always has been. She was more fun about it when she was Bunnyfire, but she's always been like this.

When it comes to any topic where she thinks she can get away with trolling, and then say "You guys just hate me because I'm a Christian", she will. We have 5+ years of history to prove it.

Look, another 1000 reply thread on the blue because she had to come in and troll. And now this 200+ thread on the grey because of her trolling.

You guys have got to quit getting her damp like this. She gets off on it.

That said, she and her ilk are a prime example of everything wrong with the evangelical movement. I've said before, and I'll say again: Believe what you want...more power to you. If you believe that God will send you and yours to an eternal suffering because you didn't get dipped in a bowl of water, or because you love someone with the same plumbing...well, ya know...fine. Whatever.

The problem comes when people who worship Zod declare that *EVERYONE* should love live by Zod's rules...when in fact, many of us thing Zod is a pale imitation of Zule's plan for reality.

I guarantee that she wouldn't want to live by Zule's rules...what with the constant fun, and parties and love for one another...and frankly, Zulites don't really want Zodons at our party anyway. But we're sure as hell not willing to turn off the giant red light of Zule's righteousness just so the Zondons don't know where we are.

So, Konolia...I'm glad that you have found a thundering, dictatorial sky god that tells you how to live your life. Go with that, and be happy. But really, could you leave the rest of us alone and quit trolling the blue?

I know you need the attention, but maybe...just maybe, you could get it from your fellow Zodons, and just pretend to be a normal, rational member of humanity the rest of the time? Your god is not my god, and everything I've heard from you about your god makes me damn proud of the fact that I've got nothing to do with your version of spirituality.

Have you ever even thought about the fact that you drive people away from Christianity, rather than towards the message of peace that the Jesu preached? You...yes, YOU are preaching the opposite of Christianity, and YOU are a primary example of why people think that evangelicals are wingnut, bugfuck insane, freaks.
posted by dejah420 at 5:17 PM on November 4, 2006 [11 favorites]

(Actually, it's the Bible you keep referencing. As others have mentioned, go ahead and quote it, in the context of a point you are trying to make. Seriously. Trying to defend something you obviously know so little about is really weird of you.)
posted by bardic at 5:23 PM on November 4, 2006

IMO, there have been some unnecessarily hateful comments in the blue thread, but also a lot of really, really well-written, insightful ones. So yeah, if we're taking konolia/bunnyfire's bait yet again, so be it. There have been some pretty tasteful, respectful rants regarding the state of some aspects of modern Christianity that I will want to read again at some point.
posted by bardic at 5:26 PM on November 4, 2006

Jesus dosn't mention it:

From David Kuo, who ran the office of faith based stuff for bush:

"The evangelical obsession with homosexuality makes this especially ironic. For many evangelical leaders, anything related to homosexuality is this special, dark sin. But that's not what the Bible says," says Kuo. "Really it's a sin like gossiping to your neighbor. Jesus doesn't even mention it at all."

posted by delmoi at 5:27 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "Obviously you think your right, and she thinks she's right."

Except that she's wrong. Any position predicated on denigration and discrimination is wrong on its face.

bardic writes "you haven't read the Bible that you keep quoting (story of Onan)"

Erm, that's because Onan is about coitus interruptus, not masturbation, as far as I recall.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:27 PM on November 4, 2006

It's generally referenced as a parable regarding masturbation as well, or any useless "spilling of seed." At least, I had a religious studies professors who made that point.

(Hehe. Did you hear the one about the gay guy and the atheist arguing over the finer points of Judeo-Christian theology?)
posted by bardic at 5:31 PM on November 4, 2006

See, here we go again -- you haven't read the Bible that you keep quoting (story of Onan). That's annoying.

Wasn't onan's problem that he pulled out? It was like god wanted him to impregnate that particular girl or something? I don't read that as a general prohibition against masturbation.
posted by delmoi at 5:38 PM on November 4, 2006

Except that she's wrong. Any position predicated on denigration and discrimination is wrong on its face.

well, it's denigratory and discriminatory on it's face, but's only 'wrong' if you believe those things are wrong. I do believe those things are wrong, but other people don't.
posted by delmoi at 5:40 PM on November 4, 2006

Seriously, Konolia is why Usenet has killfiles. You're talking to a brick wall.

Mondo Meta makes it possible to more or less effectively killfile people here too.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 5:43 PM on November 4, 2006

Straight Dope on Onan: "You're right, Onanism and masturbation have been used synonymously in Western cultures, but they probably shouldn't be."

So, I'll do something konolia seems incapable of -- I'll stand corrected. Culturally Onan has come to signify an injunction against masturbation, although the text doesn't fully support this reading.
posted by bardic at 5:43 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "I do believe those things are wrong, but other people don't."

They are wrong. Period. They may believe whatever they wish to, but they may not force it upon me. That's the difference--I would allow them the freedom. They will not do me the same courtesy. They are wrong, and quite frankly, anyone who disagrees should be launched into space along with them.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:47 PM on November 4, 2006

They are wrong. Period. They may believe whatever they wish to, but they may not force it upon me.

I have my own view of morality, and under that view, gay bashing is wrong. But that's just my view. Not that I really want to get into an epistemological debate about the nature of "wrongness", but the fact that you think she is wrong does not actually make her wrong.

Anyway, I just don't think that the personal name calling and insults are very productive. Konolia is a big contributor to metachat and she seems fine over there.
posted by delmoi at 5:57 PM on November 4, 2006

Thank god metachat is safe. Mefi's prime directive has been fulfilled.

And btw, what's the longest non-joke/non-.gif thread for the blue? Did 56002 break it?

If so, do I get to have meth-sex with a gay prostitute yet?
posted by bardic at 6:02 PM on November 4, 2006

delmoi writes "I have my own view of morality, and under that view, gay bashing is wrong. "

Discrimination is wrong. Attempting to force people to be second-class citizens is wrong.

Belief in the contrary is inexcusable. Period.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:04 PM on November 4, 2006

bardic writes "If so, do I get to have meth-sex with a gay prostitute yet?"

I know a few. Need some phone numbers?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:05 PM on November 4, 2006

Belief in the contrary is inexcusable. Period.

I didn't say you should excuse it, but you should consider how your comments are going to be received, and whether or not they will help or hurt your cause.
posted by delmoi at 6:08 PM on November 4, 2006

Nah, I'll just check out rentboy.com like Pastor Ted did.
posted by bardic at 6:10 PM on November 4, 2006

I'm sick and fucking tired of pandering to these fucking wingnuts. They are vile little creatures with no more regard for their fellow human beings than Pol Pot. Since mass execution would run slightly counter to my own moral beliefs, they should simply have their children taking away--to give the poor brainwashed things a chance to grow up in civilization--and be dumped on an island somewhere so they can't cause the rest of us any more harm.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:11 PM on November 4, 2006

Inexcusably late to this party, but could I ask a favor?

If anyone here changed his mind about anything as a result of the hundreds of responses to this post about a tawdry second-tier sex scandal, could that individual please raise his or her hand?

tia
posted by jason's_planet at 6:29 PM on November 4, 2006

As of right now it's the #6 active thread in Mefi history, according to waxy. It's still a long over 200 posts short of the top 5, though.
posted by clevershark at 6:34 PM on November 4, 2006

(strike "a long" from my last comment...)
posted by clevershark at 6:34 PM on November 4, 2006

*fucks it, goes bowling*
posted by jonmc at 6:37 PM on November 4, 2006

dirtynumb, go back and re-read dejah420's last comment. Here, I'll help:

she's an attention whore. She always has been.

konolia's happyface spin on her fundamentalist idiocy is a pretty standard mask fundies like to wear, and one that's easy to ignore. What's most wretched to me is that apologists like jonmc fall for it and then have the nerve to ask the gay folks here to focus on the mask rather than the bigotry behind it. Uh yeah, sure, jonmc. Thank goodness you feel the sting just as badly as we do (cough).
posted by mediareport at 6:39 PM on November 4, 2006

I missed this one:

I'm sick and fucking tired of pandering to these fucking wingnuts. They are vile little creatures with no more regard for their fellow human beings than Pol Pot. Since mass execution would run slightly counter to my own moral beliefs, they should simply have their children taking away--to give the poor brainwashed things a chance to grow up in civilization--and be dumped on an island somewhere so they can't cause the rest of us any more harm.

"He who fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster himself."
--Famous Dead German
posted by jason's_planet at 6:39 PM on November 4, 2006

The problem with that, jason, is that we would grant them a degree of respect and a place in the dialogue that they would never, ever grant us. And history--especially the last 20 years--has shown that you give them an inch, and they will take a mile.

Clearly, dumping them on an island is (sadly, in some ways) an untenable and morally questionable solution. It is, however, the only thing that would actually work, and allow the rest of us to continue building a society that actually values human life, rather than paying lip service to it.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:43 PM on November 4, 2006

You guys have got to quit getting damp for her like this. She gets off on it.
Konolia aint the only here loving this.

they should simply have their children taking away... ...and be dumped on an island somewhere so they can't cause the rest of us any more harm.
Your moral beliefs don't sound like much to crow about. Cultural cleansing for the expression of a hurtful opinion. Good grief man get a grip...
posted by econous at 6:52 PM on November 4, 2006

*gives head a shake*

I feel like I've been immersed in that thread, and now this one, for days upon days. I remember that thing called the "sun", and that strange place called "outside." I might even remember life before the schadenfreude took me over and I could not get enough of reading about Pastor Ted and looking at pictures of his ultra-whitened crocodile smile and his oddly pursed uppper lip and his mortified wife.

It's been awesome, Pastor Ted thread and Pastor Ted meta thread. But now that Ted's been kicked out of his church-- so quickly, too! 72 hours or something after the first report-- it may be time for us bid farewell. Perhaps I'd feel more strongly about the fundies if I were an American, but they're still a bit remote to me personally, so it's a bit more abstract. I've never met one in person, only seen them on television. Odd beings they are.
posted by jokeefe at 7:07 PM on November 4, 2006

*upper* -- I don't have my glasses on.
posted by jokeefe at 7:11 PM on November 4, 2006

One thing I've noticed watching the youtube videos of this guy is how absolutely creepy he is.

It really is like he's on drugs or something, it wouldn't surprise me if he was cranked up the entire time. He really does seem like he's cranked up.
posted by delmoi at 7:23 PM on November 4, 2006

And history--especially the last 20 years--has shown that you give them an inch, and they will take a mile.

Dude. It's a person on the 'net spewing crap. There is nothing to "take" in the instance. Let it go and get yourself a chocolate covered midget. They're delicious.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:30 PM on November 4, 2006

What's most wretched to me is that apologists like jonmc fall for it and then have the nerve to ask the gay folks here to focus on the mask rather than the bigotry behind it. Uh yeah, sure, jonmc. Thank goodness you feel the sting just as badly as we do (cough).

here's a coupon, buy an economy-sized clue.
posted by jonmc at 7:43 PM on November 4, 2006

the nerve to ask the gay folks here to focus on the mask rather than the bigotry behind it.

no, let me focus on the mask and trying to get behind it and crack it. Malcolm X once said that the best thing white people could do to fight racism was to go to their own communities and confront the prejudice there. That's what I'm trying to do with konolia. I figure in her case, since we're already cordial, beating her over the head won't work. Maybe nothing will. But, like I said before, if we give up on the idea of human beings being able to change, we might as well just pack up our granola nd move to Vermont.
posted by jonmc at 7:47 PM on November 4, 2006

(mind you, I'm not talking about changing the minds of the entire fundie nation, just one person within it I happen to know. and the fundies are made up of individuals just like any other group)
posted by jonmc at 7:50 PM on November 4, 2006

econous writes "Your moral beliefs don't sound like much to crow about. Cultural cleansing for the expression of a hurtful opinion. Good grief man get a grip.."

Hurtful opinion? Have you not been paying fucking attention? Do you have any fucking clue what these fucking people are trying to do?

Also, see above, where I did add that doing so would be morally bankrupt.

Jesus fucking Christ.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:54 PM on November 4, 2006

If anyone here changed his mind about anything as a result of the hundreds of responses to this post about a tawdry second-tier sex scandal, could that individual please raise his or her hand?

Well, I thought the bible said masturbation was wrong, but, hey, looks like it doesn't. Can't raise my hand, 'cause, um....
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:56 PM on November 4, 2006

I'm having more and more sympathy for dirtynumbangelboy as this thread goes on.

During the civil rights movement, there were a lot of people who claimed that black people were being to "Uppity" and sounding too upset, meanwhile people like Strom Thurmond were ranting about how "No law can keep the niggers out of our schools, or hospitals, our churches" and they were considered mainstream.

It's kind of a double standard. DNAB really does have a right to be outraged, I suppose, and asking him to hold his tongue for someone just because we like chatting with them on metachat isn't really fair.
posted by delmoi at 8:15 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thank you, delmoi. I didn't want to draw parallels between the queer movement and the racial equality movement (even though there are some), because I feel that 1) they are fundamentally very different issues (many of the root causes-fear and hatred of The Other--are similar, yes, but the effects etc are not), 2) for the very same reason that straight men and women don't grok what it's like to live under the lens of this hate, as jonmc put it, I cannot grok the experience of a person of colour and how it affects them.

There are definite parallels, yes, and similarities. But I don't feel right co-opting someone else's struggle.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:19 PM on November 4, 2006

I'm perfectly happy ignoring moronic fundamentalist "I'm just God's clerk" stuff; I've done it all my life, and stay away from konolia here as much as I can.

Konolia--on or off her meds--isn't worth my time to argue with, but I won't presume to deny dirtynumbangelboy the pleasure of doing so. Rock on.

Konolia's claim that her "gaydar" proved that Haggard was innocent of the charges against him was the best part of a thread I only skimmed.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:54 PM on November 4, 2006

I think Konolia ordered her gaydar along with Dwight, but Jim totally pranked them both.

/The Office joke
posted by bardic at 9:03 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Thank you, delmoi.

No problem. So I guess we can say these two threads changed at least one mind, although not about anything important :P

by the way, the last hundred comments or so have been really interesting, and not that vitrolic. I'm glad that dw wasn't able to keep anyone from having their say.
posted by delmoi at 9:46 PM on November 4, 2006

Konolia, you are never going to be able to show dirtynumbangelboy a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.
Dirtynumbangelboy, you are never going to be able to show konolia a different point of view. You're talking to a brick wall.

the difference is, konolia hasn't called for dnab's liquidation. despite his desperate attempts to paint himself as a progressive freedom fighter for the gay, he's just a spiteful little fascist at heart.
posted by quonsar at 9:59 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

/reads thread

Jesus Christ. If I never hear another word about peeping_Thomist's sex life I will die a happy man.
posted by delmoi at 10:00 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

What, delmoi? I was starting to get the impression peeping_Thomist's sex life was the purpose of the thing! I was going along with it; I was happy. Now your different point of view is causing me undue stress, and I resent it and want to bicker.
posted by cgc373 at 10:10 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

Nah, I'll just check out rentboy.com like Pastor Ted did.

An old friend of mine designed their site a while back. It has since changed, which is too bad. His design looked much better.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 10:11 PM on November 4, 2006

konolia hasn't called for dnab's liquidation.

If you're a Christian, then, when you die, you go up to Heaven and hang out with God, ... and the people on Earth get to not have to deal with you any more. Sounds win-win to me.
posted by boaz at 10:12 PM on November 4, 2006

I'm pretty sure peeping_Thomist has been doing his darndest to obfuscate the central issue -- one of the most prominent pastors in America has teh gay and is a big, fat, drug-using hypocrite.

Because if he really thinks he's contributing to anything by discussing his masturbation habits and the proper female orifice for ejaculate, well, he's as creepy as they get.
posted by bardic at 10:17 PM on November 4, 2006

konolia hasn't called for dnab's liquidation

I love it. quonsar's now the poster child for not going overboard in attacking obvious horseshit.

*pats quonsar's head*

Way to stand up for what's right, dear.
posted by mediareport at 11:21 PM on November 4, 2006

(mind you, I'm not talking about changing the minds of the entire fundie nation, just one person within it I happen to know. and the fundies are made up of individuals just like any other group)
Except that in the time i know her, she's gotten worse--she didn't used to trot out gay=pedophile shit. she was much more interested in talking with instead of at. she used to be clear that she was speaking for herself alone and used to speak of her own faith in terms of a journey and what she was learning--i guess she's arrived now? it's sad.
posted by amberglow at 11:28 PM on November 4, 2006

I compare this by her (in my Sherri Finkbine thread this summer) to her comments in the Haggard thread and see a big difference--for the worse. There were no insults directed at women who had abortions nor were they compared to pedophiles (even tho in the scheme of things, since they believe abortion is murder that should be worse than us gays, no?), and there were questions and a give-and-take.
posted by amberglow at 11:35 PM on November 4, 2006

if we give up on the idea of human beings being able to change, we might as well just pack up our granola and move to Vermont.

Excuse me?
posted by jessamyn at 12:13 AM on November 5, 2006

It's a fucking travesty that this thread and the one it references haven't earned dirtynumbangelboy a timeout or even a lifetime banning. Righteous anger is an appropriate response to homophobia and to homophobic public policy. And I'm sure he thinks that how he's behaved is correctly described as "righteous anger". But his behavior is a hell of a lot closer to someone indulging his anger until he can't distinguish it from hate and indulging his anger until he can't tell the difference between activism and being an asshole in public. He's enjoying himself. When someone is obvioulsy enjoying himself when he calls someone a "fat, fucking moron", then that reveals an ugly bit of their character as well as displays some delusion as to how to selflessly fight for what one believes is right. The outbursts in that and this thread are about dirtynumbangelboy and not about gay rights. Gay rights and his supposed righteous anger in fighting for them are mostly just a cover for him to express the hate he feels.

Not unlike how many acute homophobes cloak their hatred in theology. It's okay if we can point to a higher principle, right? Right? That's what dirtynumbangelboy is asking us to believe. He's justified. The excuse for almost every insult, violence, and horror ever committed throughout history.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:36 AM on November 5, 2006 [3 favorites]

jessamyn, 'cause that's where the hippies are! Get it?! Ha! Oh so funny.
posted by exlotuseater at 12:48 AM on November 5, 2006

Also, see above, where I did add that doing so would be morally bankrupt. Missed that... too long between writing and hitting post I'm glad you said it. To be clear I find the whole evangelist movement offensive. I have the impression that, like Prussian Blue fans, many of their offspring are home schooled. Which is a real shame because taking their children away from them for a few hours a day, might actually expose them to something other than the mono-culture of deliberate ignorance and hate served up at home. I don't think it's the governments place to force that on those families though. They have a right to be who and what they are, however hateful, hurtful and horrid that is.
posted by econous at 12:59 AM on November 5, 2006

In reference to Pastor Ted and Konolia - I am surprised none has mentioned Soldiers of Christ yet
posted by adamvasco at 1:46 AM on November 5, 2006

Well, adamvasco, the article's been linked a few times in the thread, but the thread you linked I hadn't seen, thanks.
posted by cgc373 at 1:51 AM on November 5, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "They are wrong. Period."

Based on what foundation? I hate the whole fundamentalist Christian morality. But I don't hate it because "It's Wrong ^®". Wrong and right, as far as I can tell, are not some sort of Platonic ideals expressed by the ineffable mysteries of the universe. They're just human concepts. And some groups of people have opinions of what is "right and wrong" that are different from others' opinions of what is "right and wrong". I personally hate anti-gay, anti-whatever-people-want-to-do-in-private puritanism, but I'm under no impression that there is some mystical absolute "right" that my opinions are in line with, and a "wrong" that their opinions are in line with.

The most baffling thing about MeFi to me has been seeing how many moral absolutists there are. I always thought of moral absolutism as being a theist thing. After all, for an atheist worldview of atoms and photons, where the hell do abstract concepts of "right and wrong" get some sort of absolute position? And yet MeFi is chock-a-block with atheist moral absolutists. I still don't understand it.
posted by bugbread at 5:11 AM on November 5, 2006

bugbread, dirtynumbangelboy is not an atheist. He's, as far as I can tell, a liberal christian.
posted by boaz at 5:48 AM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "Not unlike how many acute homophobes cloak their hatred in theology. It's okay if we can point to a higher principle, right? Right? That's what dirtynumbangelboy is asking us to believe. He's justified. The excuse for almost every insult, violence, and horror ever committed throughout history."

Here's $5. Go buy a clue. I call her a fat fucking moron because she is 1) fat, when by her rules gluttony is a sin, and yet she feels it's okay to point out everyone's sins, 2) clearly mentally deficient.

I am not indulging my anger. I have fully justified rage... and sorry, EB, but you wil never understand. You may think you do, you may come close, but simply will not get what it is like to be gay and have these people around. You simply will not. I'd suggest you read delmoi's comment upthread about how people complained that people of colour were getting 'uppity' back in the 50's and 60's.

bugbread writes "But I don't hate it because 'It's Wrong ^®'."

I do. Denying people rights and dignity is wrong. Is that moral absolutism? Fine. They're still wrong, they're still assholes, and they're still hellbent on destroying any modicum of civilization we have.

boaz writes "bugbread, dirtynumbangelboy is not an atheist. He's, as far as I can tell, a liberal christian."

Broadly speaking, I'm neo-Pagan, actually.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:02 AM on November 5, 2006

After all, for an atheist worldview of atoms and photons, where the hell do abstract concepts of "right and wrong" get some sort of absolute position?

Not all atheists are materialists. Further, you don't need "absolutes" to express moral principles. Just ask the Founding Fathers, read John Locke, Rousseau, etc. If someone murders someone else, they get arrested not because it's God's will, but because we have these imperfect, sticky, fuzzy things in place called "rights." They don't come from on high, they come from a mutal societal agreement. (This is all very cursory, but you see where I'm going.)

No doubt DNAB could have toned it down, but to say that equal rights for all people is more valid an appeal than to skygod X, Y, or Z is fairly accurate, at least in modern societies.
posted by bardic at 6:02 AM on November 5, 2006

Sorry, further to bugbread:

We do not have the luxury of granting these people any validity, because they will grant us none. We cannot give them a place in the dialogue, because they will give us none. We cannot grant them any power, because with that power they will destroy rights, they will destroy intellectual discourse, they will attempt to destroy who and what we are.

Without trivializing the plight of people of colour in the USA, we are in an analogous position. People of colour cannot afford to allow white supremacists a place at the table.

If I am a moral absolutist, it is because the only alternative is unthinkable.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:10 AM on November 5, 2006

The most baffling thing about MeFi to me has been seeing how many moral absolutists there are.

I'm with you bugbread. It's horribly disheartening. Normally decent and reasonable interlocutors turn into inquisitors once God is up for discussion. The evangelicals who post here get their martyrdom fix and the atheists get a good jolt of self-righteous adrenalin. Like the man says, "He who fights with monsters..."

The worst part of it is that there seem to be plenty of curious agnostics and left-leaning Christians and Jews whose efforts at maintaining nuance and respectful discourse get overwhelmed by the general flood of nastiness.

I've thought about this quite a bit and think that the problem is actually structural more than it is interpersonal. Assholes and trolls will be found in any sort of semi-anonymous community and nearly everybody has some pet issue that pushes their buttons to the degree that they're willing to sacrifice some rules of polite conduct in order to advance their position.

I say the problem is structural because I think that the threaded discussion format of MeFi actually exacerbates the problem. There is no accountability when the website encourages you to dump your opinion and move on to the next thread.

-Too often people seem like they're trying to get the last word on an issue rather than eliciting a measured response to a particular question. The time-sequence format of MeFi threads places a premium on the final statement rather than the accuracy or effectiveness of the reply to a prior statement.

-Once one of these threads drops off the front-page and conversation subsides, there is little continuity or rhetorical momentum that carries over into a subsequent thread on the topic. A new post sets everything back to square one and much effort is expended trying to lay out people's respective positions once again from the beginning.

-There is a general, community-wide disdain for calling people to account in a newly active thread for things they've said in a prior thread. This means that every discussion is a tabula rasa and one can poison a particular discussion with all sorts of spleen and straw man argumentation without fear of stigma down the road.

-There are no mechanisms built into MeFi threads for the coordination of questions and responses. All information is equally marked and conventions for quotation and emphasis are completely ad hoc. So posters may feel free to caracature or cherry pick their interlocutor's statements in order to score points. And as a thread develops, the mass of information that accrues actually aids in this sort of straw-man argumentation, since it's hard to check and see if someone is accurately representing the substance and spirit of another's statement.

MetaFilter is excellent for short discussions and sharing of information in a brief and efficient format. That's why AskMe is such a fantastic resource. The nature of a poster's problem is finalizable. Once a sufficient number of answers have been given, the discussion reaches its natural conclusion. But for big, sprawling discussions of sensitive topics, MeFi is complete shit.

What would I do about it? I'd advocate the implementation of a multi-threaded, topical discussion format for the discussion of particular issues (I/P, Atheist/Jesus, and US politics strike me as obvious cases). Once a particular discussion gets tagged with one of these tags, it gets thrown into a queue for formatting and moderation before it goes live. Then, a designated topic moderator with unimpeachable objectivity facilitates the development of the discussion with nested threads which help to keep discussions on point and prevent information overload. If a particular discussion isn't properly tagged, it gets deleted summarily. And if posters aren't respecting the conventions of the thread (misrepresenting one another or refusing to respond in good faith to questions that follow from their earlier statements), the moderator would be able to lock them out of a particular thread to prevent them from dragging the conversation into a flame war.

This fix would solve 90% of the problems in these sorts of monster threads. But it's probably too labor intensive to implement and would also require more delegation of moderation authority than Matt & Jess are willing to countenance. So, in the meantime, we'll keep soldiering on trying to discuss the more difficult issues of our day in a forum that really isn't designed for such conversations. In lieu of a radical change in the format of the website, I'd offer these brief suggestions to prevent flame wars:

-Remember who you're talking to. Hold people accountable for things they've said elsewhere when a new topic comes up. If someone trolls earlier on, they should be held to account for it in a new thread.

-Try as much as is possible to understand what a poster is trying to say, rather than what they can be made to say. Good faith goes a long way to facilitate decent conversation.

-Step away from the keyboard when you find yourself getting angry.

-Respect the forum as an opportunity to learn more about how other people frame issues and perceive problems instead of as a place to express your opinions in the face of all comers.

All these boil down to a pretty simple maxim: If you aren't working on the tracks, the trainwreck is your fault.
posted by felix betachat at 6:29 AM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Felix, when this issue affects you as personally as it does many of us here, I'll spare the time to listen. You have a luxury we don't, and you're thoroughly missing th epoint.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:52 AM on November 5, 2006

No. I'm not. No matter how right you are (and for what it's worth, I think you are right, for all your scorched-earth rhetoric), you're turning MeFi into your personal soapbox. You're hurting the community and its ability to sustain further discussions about things that matter. If you can't muster up sufficient respect for your conversation partner to permit you to avoid a flood of invective and obscenity, then you should, for all our sakes, step away from the keyboard. Write konolia an email, and come back when you can behave yourself.
posted by felix betachat at 6:58 AM on November 5, 2006

boaz : "bugbread, dirtynumbangelboy is not an atheist. He's, as far as I can tell, a liberal christian."

Ah, ok, apologies there. I can grok where dirtynumbangelboy's absolutism comes from, then. Sorry.

bardic : "Further, you don't need 'absolutes' to express moral principles...they come from a mutual societal agreement."

That, I get. My disagreement was just that, in a case where there isn't mutual agreement (i.e. all the topics of conflict that people debate about so furiously), the position of "I personally think A, and you think B, but you're wrong and I'm right". When a guy walks into a school and shoots a kid, and people say "that's wrong", I have no truck, because I understand "that's wrong" as shorthand for "we mutually agree that we don't like that shit happening".

And, personally, I'm not a moral relativist in the sense of "it's all equal, so everything is OK, and we can't disagree with people whose opinions we don't like", but "when my opinion and your opinion agree, that's great. And when my opinion and your opinion are in conflict, and it's a zero sum situation, where one must lose and one must win, I'll do what I feel comfortable with (legislation, education, socialization, not murder, not kidnapping, not torture) to try to get things to go the way I'd prefer instead of the way I wouldn't".

dirtynumbangelboy : "We do not have the luxury of granting these people any validity"

I'm not, in my opinion, granting any validity. There is no "valid" or "invalid". At best, my position could be interpreted as "Your opinions are not 'wrong'. But neither are they 'right', so I'm going to fight you from imposing them on me."
posted by bugbread at 6:59 AM on November 5, 2006

Rephrased:

The words "right" and "wrong" are shorthand words for group consensus. Where there is no consensus, they don't apply, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't still try to get a group consensus that matches their opinion. Even when there is a consensus, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't still try to get a group consensus that matches their opinion. It's thanks to efforts like that that slavery is now "wrong", where once it was "right". Not believing in absolute "right" or "wrong" is not synonymous with advocating that all positions be respected equally, or that no efforts should be made to change public opinion/law.
posted by bugbread at 7:14 AM on November 5, 2006

except, bugbread, that the position of the evangelical right wing does not deserve respect. Period. Just as the views of the segregationists, the KKK, the white supremacists are not.

bugbread writes "'Your opinions are not "wrong". But neither are they "right", so I'm going to fight you from imposing them on me.'"

I am not imposing them on you. You have the right to believe as you wish. They do not, however, have the right to impose those beliefs on the rest of us via legislation. There is no question about this, sorry.

And again, felix, you don't get it. konolia turns MeFi into her personal soapbox anytime this issue comes up.... and nobody castigates her for doing so. Why? Because she puts a nice face on bigotry and intolerance? She needs to be outed for precisely what she is, and those who agree with her are. See above regarding mistaking the mask for the message.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 7:26 AM on November 5, 2006

I have fully justified rage

Dirty, what exactly justifies this rage of yours?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:52 AM on November 5, 2006

The words "right" and "wrong" are shorthand words for group consensus.

No--they're not. If you're an American, you don't agitate and legislate to reduce or eliminate the rights of others--it's wrong, even if 95% of the country wants to. It's not ever right. Interracial marriage was what the vast vast majority did not want people to be able to do, and there were laws against it in every state. Finally one couple who was right, fought it. They were right, and everyone else was wrong. It's not even a point of contention.

It's not always about group consensus, especially when it comes to clearly spelled out rights and privileges that are supposed to be bestowed on all Americans and aren't.
posted by amberglow at 7:56 AM on November 5, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "except, bugbread, that the position of the evangelical right wing does not deserve respect."

Did I say they did?

dirtynumbangelboy : "I am not imposing them on you. You have the right to believe as you wish. They do not, however, have the right to impose those beliefs on the rest of us via legislation."

Uh, the "you" in question here was directed at fundamentalist Christians. They're the ones imposing weird restrictions on people based on the genetic makeup of their partners, right?

dirtynumbangelboy : "konolia turns MeFi into her personal soapbox anytime this issue comes up.... and nobody castigates her for doing so. Why? Because she puts a nice face on bigotry and intolerance? She needs to be outed for precisely what she is, and those who agree with her are."

People do that all the time here. That's why there's always a big hubbub when she comments about things like this. It isn't threads full of "yeah, you go girl!" or "well, whatever, to each his/her own". It's threads full of people disagreeing with her. The issue here isn't that you are outing her as a bigot or intolerant. It's the whole "I hope you fucking die and gay maggots fuck in your eyesockets" approach. Your message is cool, and I suspect most people here agree with it. Her message sucks, and I suspect most people disagree with it. But you can disagree and be civil. Being civil doesn't mean respecting someone.
posted by bugbread at 8:04 AM on November 5, 2006

amberglow : "If you're an American, you don't agitate and legislate to reduce or eliminate the rights of others--it's wrong, even if 95% of the country wants to. It's not ever right."

Again, on what basis? Where is this absolute right and wrong writ?

amberglow : "Interracial marriage was what the vast vast majority did not want people to be able to do, and there were laws against it in every state. Finally one couple who was right, fought it."

Again, I'm not saying everyone should just go along with whatever consensus holds:

bugbread : "Even when there is a consensus, that doesn't mean that people shouldn't still try to get a group consensus that matches their opinion. It's thanks to efforts like that that slavery is now 'wrong', where once it was 'right'. Not believing in absolute 'right' or 'wrong' is not synonymous with advocating that all positions be respected equally, or that no efforts should be made to change public opinion/law."
posted by bugbread at 8:06 AM on November 5, 2006

Without trivializing the plight of people of colour in the USA, we are in an analogous position. People of colour cannot afford to allow white supremacists a place at the table.

The thing is, though, that's not true. People of color had to engage with white supremacists because they were the ones who had the power. MLK's non-violent protest succeeded because it let white people feel comfortable ("see we don't have to worry, they're non violent") whereas people like Malcolm-X who advocated self-defense may have been right in some moral sense their calls actually prevented and separated people.

When culture changed, many former racists recanted.

Anyway, I wonder how much of the anti-gay hysteria is a result of the inner demons of people like Haggard, or maybe he just reflects the inner demons of his followers. It really doesn't seem like the bible really says gay sex is all that horrible. The whole thing is just bizarre.

Maybe if you spend that much time thinking and talking about gay sex you start to want it more. You should read the slacktivist blog. The guy is an evangelical Christian and a liberal. He doesn't anything against gays, and is responsible for some evangelical environmental thing. It's good reading, although you may want to skip over the "LB" entries (it's a page by page critique of the left behind books) or at least read them in order.

I understand that it can be really difficult to deal with people who think you're no better then a pedophile, but you guys live in the same world and you have to deal with each other. I can understand wanting to send them all to and island (that's called "ethnic cleansing" by the way) but you have to realize that not only is that not realistic, it's not moral either.
posted by delmoi at 8:38 AM on November 5, 2006

This thread could use a big dose of Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration...
posted by klangklangston at 8:40 AM on November 5, 2006

bugbread writes "Again, on what basis? Where is this absolute right and wrong writ?"

In your bloody Constitution, for starters. I seem to recall reading something about all men being created equal.

bugbread writes "But you can disagree and be civil."

Why should I bother? She explicitly believes that I am evil.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:40 AM on November 5, 2006

delmoi writes "I can understand wanting to send them all to and island (that's called 'ethnic cleansing' by the way) but you have to realize that not only is that not realistic, it's not moral either."

No, it's removing regressive and mentally defective people so that they cannot harm the rest of us This is what we do with prison and mental hospitals. You also seem to have missed the bit where I explicitly said that would be immoral.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:43 AM on November 5, 2006

In your bloody Constitution, for starters. I seem to recall reading something about all men being created equal.

Except for blacks. We had to wait a bit for that.

Why should I bother? She explicitly believes that I am evil.

But you think she's a moron!! So why do you care what morons think? I meen, jeez, don't argue with idiots, they'll just bring you down to their level, sheesh.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:50 AM on November 5, 2006

I call her a fat fucking moron because she is 1) fat, when by her rules gluttony is a sin, and yet she feels it's okay to point out everyone's sins,

Consider this:

There are quite a few people on MetaFilter with weight problems. I can't claim to speak for them but I'll go out on a limb and assume that, at least some of them, being human and all that, are pretty sensitive about the issue. Many of those same people would probably be 100% behind your agenda; why would you want to alienate and offend them with this coarse and nasty language?
posted by jason's_planet at 8:55 AM on November 5, 2006

Because they vote. Which is very much their right to do. And it's our right to call bullshit.
posted by bardic at 8:57 AM on November 5, 2006

The most baffling thing about MeFi to me has been seeing how many moral absolutists there are.

That's strange to me as well.

This thread and the original are very disheartening. I used to like konolia, but she's pretty much worn out her welcome as far as I'm concerned. Not that I want her banned or sent to an early grave where gay maggots fuck in her eyesockets or anything, I just don't much like her any more. What I used to see as congeniality I now see as oblivious smugness. Too bad.

As for dirtynumbangelboy, I understand where he's coming from (as much as a straight guy can), but his over-the-top rhetoric is repellent and does active harm to his cause. There's obviously no point trying to convince homophobes like konolia, but there is also no point in ranting and spewing, except that it makes you feel better. But it makes you look like a fool to many of us, so you might do better to write it down, read it to yourself, and throw it away. In a few years you may be very embarrassed if you go back and reread what you wrote here.
posted by languagehat at 8:57 AM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

As I retard, I have found both the original thread and this call out to be gallingly insensitive to myself and others like me.

Now excuse me while I go poop in my shower.
posted by Astro Zombie at 9:01 AM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

jason's_planet writes "There are quite a few people on MetaFilter with weight problems. I can't claim to speak for them but I'll go out on a limb and assume that, at least some of them, being human and all that, are pretty sensitive about the issue. Many of those same people would probably be 100% behind your agenda; why would you want to alienate and offend them with this coarse and nasty language?"

Do I need to cut and paste again?

"Nothing wrong with being fat. Everything wrong with it when gluttony is a sin and you carp endlessly about everyone else's sins.". Posted here.

So. I'm not bitching about fat people. I'm bitching about hypocritical mentally deficient bigots who carp about homosexuality being a sin whilst simultaneously stuffing their fat faces. The sins are her rules, not mine... where does she get off saying I'm going to hell while she's hoisting another tub of Haagen-Dazs?

languagehat writes "In a few years you may be very embarrassed if you go back and reread what you wrote here."

Unlikely. I am sick and fucking tired of playing nice with these people. I'll point out what clevershark said:

clevershark writes "You know, it seems in bad form to tell someone 'look over there, there's a rabid mob with pitchforks and torches here to lynch you, why don't you stop and consider their point of view.'"
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:16 AM on November 5, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "In your bloody Constitution, for starters. I seem to recall reading something about all men being created equal."

That's in the Declaration of Independence, actually, but point taken. But that's not an absolute, and it's obviously heavily interpreted. For example, we say people have the right to liberty, and yet we put murderers in jail. Are not murderers men? Are they not thereby equal, and subject to the same liberty as the rest of us?

Am I comparing homosexuals to murderers? No fucking way. I'm just pointing out that the Declaration of Independence is a great document, but hardly the basis for an absolute determination of morality, which is what I was taking issue with. As an example of a minimal codification of a few of the morals we have consensus about, and one that I'm very happy we have? Yes, it is definitely that.

dirtynumbangelboy : "Why should I bother? She explicitly believes that I am evil."

For the benefit of the other folks here? You're engaging in public discourse here, not private discourse. Tell her that you want to line her and her congregation up and shoot them each in the back of the head in email, if you want.

bardic : "Because they vote. Which is very much their right to do. And it's our right to call bullshit."

The question was "Why would you use terminology that offends overweight Mefites", not "Why would you use terminology that offends overweight Mefites who oppose homosexuality". And, in either case, still, what would the point be in offending them? "You vote, and you're fat, and you oppose homosexuality, so I will make fun of your weight, in order that I may accomplish...???"
posted by bugbread at 9:21 AM on November 5, 2006

Ah, to be fair, on rereading the thread, you did address the fat/gluttony issue before you called her a fat fucking bigoted small-minded homophobic bitch. I was under the impression that you didn't bring up the gluttony issue until after. So I apologize.
posted by bugbread at 9:28 AM on November 5, 2006

Wow. Bugbread, you're one of the smarter people here, but take a step back from the screen. I thought DNAB was out of line. But, then again, channeling myself when I was in third grade, Konolia started it. That's all I meant. And I was responding to Brandon FWIW.
posted by bardic at 9:30 AM on November 5, 2006

his over-the-top rhetoric is repellent and does active harm to his cause.

I agree with the above. dirtynumbangelboy has made me cringe with unnecessarily over the top fury on a couple of things here, which makes me think of him as a hit-or-miss ally at best. And while I *definitely* know where he's coming from, I think his "We cannot give them a place in the dialogue, because they will give us none" is out of place at MeFi, because fundie bigots *are* in the dialogue here, and we can't expect them to disappear without asking Matt to dramatically change the open nature of the site.

(Although it would be interesting to at least hear Matt's take on the "would you allow Bible-based racist comments at MeFi?" question.)

Also, I have to add from experience there it seems to me that every last one of the fundies "indulges" their anti-gayness in the way Ethereal Bligh mentioned dirtynumb was indulging his rage. In fact, "indulging" one's hostility against gays seems to me to be *inherent* in choosing a fundamentalist doctrine that attacks rather than welcomes gay and lesbian citizens as they are. We know such welcoming Christian theologies are possible; those who deliberately ignore them for the pinched and hostile flavors have *already* made their choice to indulge their worst emotions, which makes it especially difficult to hear "why can't you just be reasonable with them?" whining when it come from straight people who insist the fundies are kind and well-meaning. Just wanted to note that.

There is a general, community-wide disdain for calling people to account in a newly active thread for things they've said in a prior thread.

No, there isn't. It's perfectly appropriate to continue thoughtful discussion with information about posters gleaned from other threads. Posting history matters. What's frowned upon is derailing a new thread with unfinished screaming matches from an old one.
posted by mediareport at 9:37 AM on November 5, 2006

Sorry, bardic, I think I came across differently than I meant. I wasn't trying to make a stinging rejoinder, I just thought you misread the question. No attack intended.
posted by bugbread at 9:41 AM on November 5, 2006

Well, "fat" does not equal "gluttony." I think that explanation actually underscores the slur. And words like "retard" and "moron" have their own serious problems, and are pretty offensive. And "bitch" is no picnic, either, though has been somewhat re-framed over the years.

I live in the Castro, with two gay, non-white kids. One of the least attractive aspects of many of the white gay men in this 'hood is their unwillingness to grapple with or even consider discrimination issues other than homophobia. And, no, I'm not ranking oppressions, though if I did both homophobia and discrimination based on disability or size would be at the top of my list.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 9:51 AM on November 5, 2006

The ignorance on display here and there about both moral philosophy and its relationship to legal theory in the US is painful. And there's something sort of sad about how, historically, each group which advocates for previously unrecognized rights asserts that the guarantee of such rights is self-evidently in the Constitution (or Nature! or Moral Philosophy!) and that the failure to recognize this is a willful and delusion denial by the opponents. The implication of this is that any rights that these groups don't see as "self-evident" then must not exist because, by their view, all the true and existing rights are self-evident. Thus, the people in history who worked to recognize and secure the rights for black people in the US somehow failed to see the "self-evident" rights of women, both these groups somehow missed the "self-evident" rights of gay people, and all these groups will someday be seen to have missed the "self-evident" rights of animals. It's never enough to say that what we understand by "rights" is built upon a cultural and historical context even if there's some form of absolutism or near-absolutism in their core. We already know from history that it takes the correct context for people to begin to agree that some past practice was discrimination and bigotry. Why doesn't it occur to both advocates and deniers that during the historical period when such an understanding is in flux it's not patently obvious from merely a reading of a text and being a good human being whether some contested right "exists"?

The answer is a general answer: people will always prefer the simple over the complex and it's always more comfortable for them to believe that everyone who thinks differently than they do about the world is necessarily willfully deluded and badly-intentioned.

And you know what? That is what intolerance really is. Tolerance isn't accepting other people's divergent worldviews. You don't have to believe these other views are true or think them ethically right. But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are. This is why tolerance is a virtue—it's this recipe that makes it possible for people to get along with each other while disagreeing.

I don't see very much tolerance in the world today and, worse, I don't see very much of it from the sorts of people who toss the word around and think tolerance is the prime virtue. Their practice of tolerance comes down to this: it's the acceptance of views divergent from theirs that they are already comfortable with. All other views they don't like, they don't have to tolerate because...here it comes...those other views are wrong. And this "wrong" is used both in its truth and moral senses. You scratch this sort of person and you find, as Bugbread notes, an intolerant absolutist. How ironic and sad.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:55 AM on November 5, 2006

For the sake of argument, let's substitute fat people for pedophiles...
posted by horsewithnoname at 9:56 AM on November 5, 2006

Heh, I missed the discussion about putting "mentally defective people" into prisons and mental hospitals. The battle against unnecessary institutionalization has been discussed elsewhere on this site, see Olmstead.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 9:58 AM on November 5, 2006

horsewithnoname : "For the sake of argument, let's substitute fat people for pedophiles..."

"We've secretly replaced all the fat people on MetaFilter with pedophiles. Let's see if they notice."
posted by bugbread at 10:01 AM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "The answer is a general answer: people will always prefer the simple over the complex and it's always more comfortable for them to believe that everyone who thinks differently than they do about the world is necessarily willfully deluded and badly-intentioned."

Good God. Have you not been reading? Let me try this one more time:

Evangelical Christians are badly-intentioned with regards to homosexuals. Period. They want us to be second-class citizens. They want us to not enjoy the same rights and privileges (and, yes, responsibilities) that they do. These are bad intentions, QED.

Ethereal Bligh writes "And you know what? That is what intolerance really is. Tolerance isn't accepting other people's divergent worldviews. You don't have to believe these other views are true or think them ethically right. But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are. This is why tolerance is a virtue—it's this recipe that makes it possible for people to get along with each other while disagreeing."

If being intolerant of bigotry makes me a bad person, then I will wear that badge with fucking pride. Their divergent worldview results in suicide, in assault, in depression, in lies. There is no reasonable worldview which can cause these things. Divergence of opinion is one thing. Hate is radically different. Stop being an apologist for bigotry.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:07 AM on November 5, 2006

"Also, I have to add from experience there it seems to me that every last one of the fundies 'indulges' their anti-gayness in the way Ethereal Bligh mentioned dirtynumb was indulging his rage. In fact, 'indulging' one's hostility against gays seems to me to be *inherent* in choosing a fundamentalist doctrine that attacks rather than welcomes gay and lesbian citizens as they are. We know such welcoming Christian theologies are possible; those who deliberately ignore them for the pinched and hostile flavors have *already* made their choice to indulge their worst emotions"

I agree and disagree with you about this. I agree with you insofar as one of these people deliberately chooses to affiliate with a Christian community that makes homophobia a centerpiece of its moral universe.

I disagree with you in that I don't think that merely believing homosexual sex is a sin is an example of this. As some Christians pointed out in the thread in the blue, Christians believe all sorts of things are sins and there's plenty of scriptural basis for refusing to make homosexuality any bigger of a deal than, say, adultery.

All sorts of religious and ethical traditions make claims about the rightness and wrongess of a great many actions. Just because one of these traditions makes a claim about an action doesn't mean they are oppressing anyone, at least not any more than we oppress each other every day by having beliefs about right and wrong and who's a good person and who's a bad person. We can find a belief false or even offensive, but in a pluralistic society it is actions that matter.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:08 AM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are.

Well sure, but what if those intolerant people have thoughtfully considered the costs and opportunities of tolerating vs. not tolerating something and decided that intolerance is preferable to tolerance? In fact, maybe they've considered that tolerance is a form of complicity. For example, those people you mentioned who fought against slavery, for women's emancipation, etc. were actually being intolerant. [Even Stevphen]Don't you see your logic eats itself?[/Even Stevphen]
posted by boaz at 10:10 AM on November 5, 2006

No, it's removing regressive and mentally defective people so that they cannot harm the rest of us This is what we do with prison and mental hospitals. You also seem to have missed the bit where I explicitly said that would be immoral.

No offense but that's bullshit. Who cares what people think as long as they don't actively go out and harm people. What you're arguing is that it's OK to quarantine people based on their political views in order to prevent them from voting. That view is completely contrary to the very core of liberalism. You're not asking for tolerance, you're asking for PC totalitarianism, and that's just as dangerous as religious totalitarianism. I mean where do you get off talking about "the constitution" while having views like that?

I know it sucks to have people think those things about you, but you're just going to have to deal with it. It's alright to feel angry about it, but have some perspective.

The best way to get what you want is come across as nicer then them, so that the people who don't care either way will like you more.

You also have to make the distinction between how people think and how they act if people say all kinds of offensive shit, but don't do anything about it, then they shouldn't suffer any consequences, no matter how much it offends you. That's what freedom of speech (and more importantly, freedom of thought) is all about. I don't think people with her views or people with your views about how to deal with people like her should ever be put in power or given a chance to act on their beliefs. But as offensive as it may (or may not) be they have the right to feel that way.
posted by delmoi at 10:12 AM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "We can find a belief false or even offensive, but in a pluralistic society it is actions that matter."

Which is precisely the fucking problem! See DOMA, etc.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:18 AM on November 5, 2006

We can find a belief false or even offensive, but in a pluralistic society it is actions that matter.

Which is, of course, why I began my statement with "from experience..."
posted by mediareport at 10:19 AM on November 5, 2006

delmoi writes "But as offensive as it may (or may not) be they have the right to feel that way."

Jesus. Perhaps you could pay attention?

I did not say they cannot believe what they want. I did say they must not be allowed to legislate their beliefs into law. Unfortunately, and this is the obscenity, there is no way to stop them under the rules which, believe it or not, I do hold dear. Our own rules say we have to let them try, when they would not do the same for us. And they are taking over.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:21 AM on November 5, 2006

BTW EB, here's what Frederick Douglass had to say about religion in his time:

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes - a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.

Where did those abolitionists find that asshole?
posted by boaz at 10:30 AM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

"If being intolerant of bigotry makes me a bad person, then I will wear that badge with fucking pride. Their divergent worldview results in suicide, in assault, in depression, in lies. There is no reasonable worldview which can cause these things. Divergence of opinion is one thing. Hate is radically different. Stop being an apologist for bigotry."

Yes, that's the typical response. It's too easy. In fact, it's a tautology. Tolerating everything you think is worthy of tolerance and nothing you think is not is not tolerance. It's something else: being comfortable. Tolerance has to be, in essence, an admission of fallibility. If you believe yourself infallible, if you believe yourself universally correct in your moral view of the universe, then you don't need tolerance. Indeed, being tolerant when that is the case is to encourage wrongdoing. But what I think you (and others) are doing is more subtle.

I do believe that there is such a thing as "bigotry" and that hate is a component of it. And I agree that I don't have to be tolerant of it because—this is crucial—whatever this "bigotry" thing is, which includes hate, it is not to be a well-intentioned and thoughtful person. A bigot has proven my supposition false. The problem with how you and other people argue, though, is that you equate the holding of all varieties of a particular abstract belief with being a bigot on the basis of that belief. In doing so, you've just erases the distinction between an opinion you disblieve and bigotry. You've conveniently removed the rationale for tolerance of all instances of that belief. And that's extremely suspiciously convenient because a person can do the same thing with every belief they disbelieve. At that point, the very notion of tolerance no longer makes any sense, it's been made irrerelevant. And, sure, you and all other poeple don't actually do this with regard to all other beliefs you don't believe. You just do it with regard to the ones you think are important, the ones you care about, the ones you think have important moral components and which play a large role in how our society is shaped. But, of course, those are the very things where tolerance matters most, not least. You may not have completely abolished the meaningfulness and utility of tolerance, but you've made it trivial and unimportant. Which is sadly ironic if supposedly tolerance is a cornerstone of your morality.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:33 AM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "If you believe yourself infallible, if you believe yourself universally correct in your moral view of the universe"

I do not believe myself to be universally correct in my morality.

I do, however, believe that when people are trying to take away my fucking rights, my dignity, and my equality that they are morally wrong and there is no way they can ever be considered right. I will tolerate listening to a lot of opinions with which I do not agree. I will not tolerate hate and bigotry, period. And you have not explained why there is any reason to tolerate the opinions of people who want to see me relegated to second-class status, who want to ensure I cannot marry, that it is illegal for me to have sex, that I cannot visit my partner in the hospital, that I am automatically cut out of inheritances... shall I go on?

Just like so many other people here, you have a luxury that we do not. You can consider this issue intellectually. For you it is, in the final analysis, just a thought experiment. For the rest of us it affects who we are and how we wish to live our lives, every fucking day.

Stop being an apologist for bigotry.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 10:43 AM on November 5, 2006

Their divergent worldview results in suicide, in assault, in depression, in lies. There is no reasonable worldview which can cause these things.

there is no unreasonable worldview which can cause those things either. suicide, assault, depression, lies - you want to blame those things on the way OTHER people THINK? you suppose straight white protestant breeders don't experience those things? get over yourself, for fuck's sake.
posted by quonsar at 10:51 AM on November 5, 2006

In doing so, you've just erases the distinction between an opinion you disblieve and bigotry.

So, believing that gay people are inherently sinful in ways straight people are not *doesn't* count as a form of bigotry.

Uh-huh. Got it.
posted by mediareport at 10:52 AM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh:
But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are.

then

do believe that there is such a thing as "bigotry" and that hate is a component of it. And I agree that I don't have to be tolerant of it because—this is crucial—whatever this "bigotry" thing is, which includes hate, it is not to be a well-intentioned and thoughtful person.

How do we determine the bigot from the well-intentioned? Is it obvious?
posted by econous at 10:54 AM on November 5, 2006

"In fact, maybe they've considered that tolerance is a form of complicity."

First, note that I make a difference between playing one's part in a democracy and holding to a belief. I can be tolerant of a homophobe but be active against his attempts to legislate his beliefs. Which I am, on both counts.

But if you actually meant to be "intolerant" in the context of my view of tolerance, then, yes, I think they are being intolerant in the name of a higher virtue. They are obviously very secure in their beliefs about the wrong belief they are choosing to be intolerant about. That's part of why all these movement have historically had theist roots. Theists who strongly embrace an absolutist morality which they think is quite evident in many ways are people who find it very easy to be intolerant in the name of the Good. Historically, we can see that both very bad things and very good things result. Avoiding those bad things is part of the rationale for tolerance. But you can't avoid those bad things without also avoiding those good things. A very tolerant culture is much less likely to produce someone crusading for an unpopular cause. In Douglas's time, abolitionism was much more unpopular than gay rights are today. It's not courageous to be a gay rights activist today in the way it was to be in the time of Douglas or Susan Anthony. The Stonewall rioters were being courageous. Dirtynumbangelboy is not (here).

On Preview: Just stop it with the "you don't know because you're not gay" thing. Yes, I don't know, not being gay. So? That argument is a justification for how strongly you feel about this. It's not an argument for any other damn thing. If feeling strongly about something because of personal experience with adversity somehow made people right and justified their behavior, I'd have to listen to the racism of a bunch of white Rhodesians and not object. In this, too, you're revealing your own ethics to be extremely self-serving. You are systematically invalidating every voice which disagrees with you. It's beginning to seem to me your clash with theist homophobes with limited and self-serving worldviews was like attracting like.

I can't imagine how you've done much more practical gay activist work than I have. True, I've not really marched. But I vote, am outspoken, and most importantly behave in aggressively anti-homophobe ways and have been for a very long time. I also live in the more homophobic USA rather than your Canada, and within the USA live and have lived in especially homophobic areas. And because of how I behave, though not being homosexual, I've experienced homophobia, including here on MeFi. As much as it may comfort you to think that my disagreeable voice is a voice from some armchair where I'm arguing completely theoretical matters and where I have no practical experience—or, in your terms, not something I really fucking care about to the point of being infuriated, it's not the case. Where we disagree is that apart from your beliefs and feelings about gay rights, which I share with you, you're acting as hatefully intolerant as the homophobes we both fight. And, though perhaps you aren't aware of it, there's other things at stake and, frankly, being intolerant and hateful and, dare I say, a bigot is a bigger problem for humanity than a lack of recognized gay rights are. Your behavior towards konolia is inexcusable, though you clearly think you have the Gods on your side. Welcome to club of hateful intolerant people who believe They Are Right.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:01 AM on November 5, 2006

quonsar : "you suppose straight white protestant breeders don't experience those things?"

Well, I've never actually heard of a straight white protestant breeder be assaulted for being a straight white protestant breeder.

Actually, if you divide it up, I've heard of people being assaulted for being white, and of people being assaulted for being protestant, but I've not heard of anyone being assaulted for being a breeder.
posted by bugbread at 11:13 AM on November 5, 2006

"How do we determine the bigot from the well-intentioned? Is it obvious?"

You'd have to pin down "obvious". I think that if you know someone, it becomes obvious. I think that if you know a great deal about someone, it becomes obvious. I think that given a particular view with very, very strong components of hate and (practical) intolerance, it becomes obvious or at least much more likely. In the latter case, I think such views are necessarily fringe. Related to this are questions like: did someone seek this belief out? How does this belief fit into the rest of their belief system and is it consistent?

Being careful about these things are exactly the sorts of ways in which one can most act unlike the bigot. The bigot primarily wants individuals to whom they can feel superior to in most respects. They don't want isolated individuals, they want large classes of people. They want to be able to easily identify such people. They want to think of them as being less human in some or many respects. The homophobe thinks that gays are lesser humans because, I suspect, they believe that the supposed perversity indicates a diminished moral sense and a diminshed sense of, um, the "proper order of things". They seem gays as damaged people. They, on the other hand, are undamaged, whole.

But you can also see these same impulses displayed in the ranting of the anti-homophobes in these two threads.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:15 AM on November 5, 2006

quonsar writes "there is no unreasonable worldview which can cause those things either. suicide, assault, depression, lies - you want to blame those things on the way OTHER people THINK? you suppose straight white protestant breeders don't experience those things? get over yourself, for fuck's sake."


"Gay men are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight counterparts and the numbers increase exponentially during the holidays."

In a culture of acceptance, without bigotry, do you really think that number would be so disproportionately high?

Ethereal Bligh writes "It's beginning to seem to me your clash with theist homophobes with limited and self-serving worldviews was like attracting like."

Wow. I have a limiting and self-serving worldview because I don't want to be a fucking second-class citizen? You are a class act all the way. What kind of intellectual gymnastics have you had to go through to maintain this view?

You're blind. You do not understand. You equate homophobia with intolerance of homophobia as if they were the same thing. You have conclusively proven yourself to be just as mealymouthed as they are. I am done with you.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:17 AM on November 5, 2006

But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are.

That's not true at all, and I can't believe you were thinking clearly when you wrote it. What tolerance requires is that you tolerate other people: that you don't try to shut them up or put them away or otherwise abuse them. Your formulation would imply that someone who was more well-intentioned and thoughtful than everyone else in the world could treat everyone else like shit, which is absurd. The whole point of civilized behavior is that we tolerate people we don't in fact believe are "just as well-intentioned and thoughtful" as ourselves; who we may think are fools, bigots, or otherwise inferior. We tolerate anyone who is not actively harming other people. I tolerate, for instance, konolia, because she (as far as I know) isn't harming gay people, just consigning them to hell (which, even if you believe in hell, she has no power to do). You don't have to approve of someone to tolerate them; in fact, that's pretty much the whole point of tolerance.
posted by languagehat at 11:28 AM on November 5, 2006

One could always sidestep the whole issue by avoiding the hardline "tolerance is always a virtue" stance, too. If tolerance is itself a virtue, then tolerating rapists, murderers, homophobes, and people who fall asleep on your arm on the subway is also a virtue.

The problem with homophobes is not that they are intolerant people. It's that they are intolerant of homosexuals. Tolerance of homosexuality is a virtue. Tolerance of heterosexuals is a virtue. Tolerance of torturers is not. Tolerance of people who think every third baby born should be skewered and served at a luau is not. Tolerance of people who disagree with you is a virtue. Tolerance of people who disagree with you and try to use the law to squash you is not. There's no hypocrisy in this approach, because it doesn't treat tolerance, in and of itself, as a virtue.
posted by bugbread at 11:36 AM on November 5, 2006

...Which is how everyone pretty much works anyway, they just cover it up with grandfalooting statements that make their opinions seem less self-centered and more universal.
posted by bugbread at 11:38 AM on November 5, 2006

The whole point of civilized behavior is that we tolerate people we don't in fact believe are "just as well-intentioned and thoughtful" as ourselves

Amen. Sometimes EB gets lost in the thicket of his own words, and "tolerance requires you believe folks you disagree with are generally well-intentioned" sure qualifies as a jawdropping example.
posted by mediareport at 11:39 AM on November 5, 2006

Thank you, bugbread, for articulating that. I was trying to find a way to say it, and you said it far better than I could.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 11:41 AM on November 5, 2006

The problem with that is the same as the problem with "free speech except for bad speech": everybody tolerates what they think is OK anyway and refuses to tolerate what they don't like, which effectively negates the whole thing. As for rapists and murderers, they don't come into this; they commit crimes and should be punished for them. People who think every third baby born should be skewered and served at a luau? Yes, they should be tolerated, because they're not harming anybody. Thoughtcrime is a crime only in totalitarian societies. And remember, we all have thoughts and ideas that somebody else despises. Tolerate, that ye may be tolerated.
posted by languagehat at 11:41 AM on November 5, 2006

Er, "that" being what bugbread said up there. Damn all you people with speedy typing fingers! It's a good thing I'm a tolerant man...
posted by languagehat at 11:42 AM on November 5, 2006

Bugbread, I was hoping that the subtext of most of my recent comments might partly answer your questions about the pervasity of covert absolutism. But I'll address some things to you specifically.

First, I'll state my own beliefs. In the rigorous and theoretical sense, I'm a relativist. This includes both a general philosophical and a moral relativism. But in the less rigorous and very practical sense, I usually behave as if I'm a variety of absolutist. A lot of people do this, and it's a reasonable way to be. My argument, in fact, would be that we don't really have the choice to be, in a practical sense, truly relativists.

Now, this dichotomy by itself can describe a great many people. Pretty much everyone who isn't an outright absolutist. But I think it's more complicated than that.

For one thing, there's the difference between how one describes oneself and what one really is. I honestly don't think that a very large number of self-described relativists are even relativists in the theoretical and rigorous sense. For them, their claim of relativism functions culturally, not cognitively. I think there's an analog to this in religion. A lot of theists claim that atheism is actually just another religion. Strictly speaking, I think this is false. However, I do think that for a subset of atheists their atheism functions exactly like a religion—partly culturally, but more important psychologically. In this sense their self-description isn't accurate and it's probably not the case that they are aware of it. Just so with these closet absolutists—they really do think they are relativists.

And that's why they often act like hard-core absolutists.

For me, my theoretically relativism acts as a caution, or brake, on my practical absolutism. This is why I simultaneously am willing to take strong moral positions on things while defending those who take opposing positions. I am not afraid at all to say that homosexuality is "right" and eating animals is "wrong". But in the absence to some hotline to the truth, I'm not willing to assume that everyone who believes differently must necessarily be a lesser moral person than I am.

What do I mean when I say that something is "wrong" or something is "right"? Well, let's take an example of something much less controversial: murder. I doubt that you are struck by someone's surprising absolutism when they condemn murder. Similarly, when I take a moral position, I'm really just saying that I think I can make a really good argument why something should or shouldn't be done. I'm confident in that argument.

That doesn't mean that I believe that I'm ultimately right or that there'd be a way to make that judgement. It also doesn't mean that I can't change my mind. My moral beliefs are, to me, pretty much like my other beliefs. I believe very strongly that the Democratic Party will pick up more than 10 seats in the House of Representatives on election day. If that doesn't happen, obviously I'll recognize that my belief was false. My moral beliefs change over time, as well, and are affected by evidence, as well.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:44 AM on November 5, 2006

I did not say they cannot believe what they want. I did say they must not be allowed to legislate their beliefs into law. Unfortunately, and this is the obscenity, there is no way to stop them under the rules which, believe it or not, I do hold dear. Our own rules say we have to let them try, when they would not do the same for us. And they are taking over.

The problem is you're stopping short of what you said earlier:

they should simply have their children taking away--to give the poor brainwashed things a chance to grow up in civilization--and be dumped on an island somewhere so they can't cause the rest of us any more harm.

In other words, because they don't want to follow the 'rules' of democracy, we need to give up on the rules of democracy and dump them on an island. Later you back off from that, saying:

Clearly, dumping them on an island is (sadly, in some ways) an untenable and morally questionable solution. It is, however, the only thing that would actually work, and allow the rest of us to continue building a society that actually values human life, rather than paying lip service to it.

But from what you're saying it sounds like you don't actually value the life of the these people. I don't think that's inconsistent, but it's not going to sell very well. To say that a person can only vote if they have the same views as you is the exact opposite of what democracy is all about.
posted by delmoi at 11:48 AM on November 5, 2006

"Your formulation would imply that someone who was more well-intentioned and thoughtful than everyone else in the world could treat everyone else like shit, which is absurd."

No it wouldn't. You can't get to that from what I wrote.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:59 AM on November 5, 2006

"Wow. I have a limiting and self-serving worldview because I don't want to be a fucking second-class citizen?"

No. Not wanting to be a second-class citizen and fighting against that isn't why you have a limiting and self-serving worldview. It because of, you know, all those other reasons I gave you. But if you want to continue your pattern of arguing that everything you do and say is justified because you don't want to be a second-class citizen, then be my guest. I think you might investigate the possibility that you deserve a Ferrari because you don't want to be a second-class citizen and the next time you lose your temper and kick your dog you might justify it because you don't want to be a second-class citizen.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:03 PM on November 5, 2006

languagehat : "everybody tolerates what they think is OK anyway and refuses to tolerate what they don't like, which effectively negates the whole thing. As for rapists and murderers, they don't come into this; they commit crimes and should be punished for them. People who think every third baby born should be skewered and served at a luau? Yes, they should be tolerated, because they're not harming anybody."

Well, first, you're right, the luau example was badly phrased, because I'd actually tolerate them, unless they did it. I meant to say "people who do skewer and luau babies". But with the murder and rape are crimes, you're just rephrasing the issue. That is, you're saying we shouldn't tolerate some crimes. Which I agree with. But you're pretending that you're supporting across-the-board toleration and yet punishing people who do things you don't like, which is...badabing...intolerance!

Personally, my lines would generally be drawn along the lines of "All different thoughts by anyone, regardless of how much I might disagree, should be tolerated, but there's a big laundry list of actions which should not". Which, again, is pretty much how the world works, while using the word "toleration" when it suits them, and rephrasing things to avoid that word when it doesn't.

If we're purely talking "tolerance of thought, and not of action", then, yeah, I'm all for tolerance of thought, even thought I find vile. But when it comes to acting on that thought, I just don't see universal tolerance as being much of a virtue.

But the more we talk about this, the hazier I'm getting about what we all mean by the word "tolerance", and I'm pretty sure that I'm not using it the same way as I was when I first started talking about it.
posted by bugbread at 12:08 PM on November 5, 2006

You can't get to that from what I wrote.

I can and did. You wrote:

But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are.

What I got from that is that if you don't believe anyone is just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are, you don't have to tolerate them. If that's not what you meant, the onus is on you to write more clearly. I note also that you haven't addressed my point.
posted by languagehat at 12:10 PM on November 5, 2006

If we're purely talking "tolerance of thought, and not of action", then, yeah, I'm all for tolerance of thought, even thought I find vile. But when it comes to acting on that thought, I just don't see universal tolerance as being much of a virtue.

Well then, we're in full agreement, because what I said way up there was "We tolerate anyone who is not actively harming other people." Emphasis added, because it doesn't seem to have come across.
posted by languagehat at 12:12 PM on November 5, 2006

I don't think that I can tolerate much more of this.
posted by leftcoastbob at 12:13 PM on November 5, 2006

leftcoastbob, stop being such a bigot.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:16 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

delmoi writes "But from what you're saying it sounds like you don't actually value the life of the these people."

I do. What I do not value, and will not tolerate, is their hatred and bigotry. Why is that so hard to understand? They are actively working to destroy your country, and are gaining a stronger foothold in my country. They are deliberately trying to ensure that people do not get the education they need or the rights they deserve. And they will not listen to reason. That is why, in a practical world, they should be sent off to have their own Jesusland where the only people they can harm is themselves.

We cannot do this. Clearly we cannot do this. And as much as I may want this, I could not actually support it (unless, for example it was a consensual thing. Give them part of Texas or something).

We are in a catch-22. Giving them a voice, a place in the dialogue, implicitly validates their positions, and gives them traction to gain more mindshare. As other people have pointed out, their insular nature and antagonism to real education ensures that children growing up are summarily indoctrinated and brainwashed into their hatred... which only gives these bigots that much more support.

Ethereal Bligh writes "I think you might investigate the possibility that you deserve a Ferrari because you don't want to be a second-class citizen and the next time you lose your temper and kick your dog you might justify it because you don't want to be a second-class citizen."

What the fuck is wrong with you? Let me try this again. And I'll use small words, so maybe you'll actually understand:

These assholes want to ensure that I am not equal in the eyes of the law. I will not tolerate that. I am filled with rage because of that.

It has nothing to do with fucking Ferraris or kicking my nonexistent fucking dog, you turnip. Nice strawman.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:17 PM on November 5, 2006

EB: " But what tolerance does require you to do is to believe that people with differing beliefs are, in general, just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are.

languagehat : "What I got from that is that if you don't believe anyone is just as well-intentioned and thoughtful as you are, you don't have to tolerate them."

I dunno, I understood clearly (not saying I agree, just that the argument seemed straightforward). It's an "A therefore B" argument. You're saying that that implies "If not B, then not A", and that doesn't logically follow.
posted by bugbread at 12:17 PM on November 5, 2006

Well then, we're in full agreement, because what I said way up there was "We tolerate anyone who is not actively harming other people." Emphasis added, because it doesn't seem to have come across.

Coming full circle, DNAB actually did have a beef with Konolia's actions particularly her voting for people who organize government in a way that takes away his rights and makes him a second class citizen.

So the question isn't really "is it OK to think X" vs "Is it OK to do X" it's "Is it OK to vote for people who will make the government do X"

The answer to that question is a little more nuanced, and cuts to the heart of democracy.

Perhaps we should only allow internet philosophers to vote.
posted by delmoi at 12:19 PM on November 5, 2006

delmoi : "So the question isn't really 'is it OK to think X' vs 'Is it OK to do X' it's 'Is it OK to vote for people who will make the government do X'

The answer to that question is a little more nuanced, and cuts to the heart of democracy. "

I think it boils down to "People generally believe that others should have the right to do certain things, but believe that they shouldn't actually use that right". Which makes sense to me. I think people should have the right to vote for David Duke, but I don't believe they actually should vote for David Duke. There's conflict between those two statements, but they are not directly contradictory.
posted by bugbread at 12:26 PM on November 5, 2006

I dunno, I understood clearly (not saying I agree, just that the argument seemed straightforward). It's an "A therefore B" argument. You're saying that that implies "If not B, then not A", and that doesn't logically follow.

You're quite right; my bad. However, the statement as written is still completely wrong, and EB has still not addressed my point (that tolerance of those we deem well-intentioned is not true tolerance).

DNAB actually did have a beef with Konolia's actions particularly her voting for people who organize government in a way that takes away his rights and makes him a second class citizen

Yeah, but this is where the whole "action" thing gets into murky waters. Voting for someone who (among many other things) wants to take away somebody's rights is not the same as punching that somebody in the nose. Where do you draw the line? Ah, that's where philosophy and politics meet behind the barn and kick each other in the nuts.
posted by languagehat at 12:28 PM on November 5, 2006

Woo-hoo: 300!
posted by languagehat at 12:29 PM on November 5, 2006

For the love of criminy, bring IMG back ASAP. This frickin thread should have been shut down by image bombing days ago.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP. It's the same 10 users out of 40,000 that are perpetuating this thread. Get your own fucking television debate show and for the love of all that's holy, let this boring excuse for a lame thread drop off the face of the earth (and My Comments).

Commenter 1. "Oh ho, I have the cleverest point to make!"
Commenter 2. "Oh ho, but I have the even cleverester point to make!"
Commenter 3. "Oh ho, but I have the exact same point to make, just phrased so that it sounds like I'm disagreeing with you!"
Commenter 2. "Oh ho, then we have an arguement!"
Commenter 1. "Oh ho, indeed!"
Commenter 3. "The battle is joined!"
Commenter 4. "HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!!"
Commenter 1. "Ha HA! I shall simply restate what I said in the first place, but using longer sentences and more flowery prose!"
Commenter 2. "I shall take your restatement as a complete reversal and call you a hypocrite!"
Commenter 4. "I shall merely repeat the word 'hypocrite' over and over and over in successive comments until someone favorites one of them, dammit."
Commenter 5. "Hey, you misspelled 'argument' back there."
Commenter 1. "Shut up, I did not! You are a trollfucking shitslurping asstoad arghfucky arsnbarger bag and/or bucket of cock and/or cocks!"
Commenter 5. "Actually, it was Commenter 2 who made the mistake, but now I will disagree with anything you say on MeFi for the next 2 years, eventually without actually remembering why."
Commenter 6. "You have insulted Commenter 5's honor, and I am here to take my sassy vengeance on you."
Commenter 7. "I haven't bothered reading any of the comments in this thread, but here's what I think. Basically, it's a summation of what Commenters 1 & 2 were saying all along, which turns out to be pretty much the same thing."
Commenters 1&2. "YOU'RE WRONG AND YOU SUCK!@!!"
Commenter 7. "No, you're wrong and you suck!"
Commenter 8. "hay guys whats going on in this thread"
Commenters 1-7. "SHUT UP!"
Commenter 9. ::the Big Lebowski quote about Donnie being like a child wandering into a movie::
Commenter 10. lol lebowski *marks as favorite*
GOTO 10

Jesus Buttfucking Christ. All that work because I couldn't just post a simple jpg of a flaming baby.
posted by Eideteker at 12:34 PM on November 5, 2006 [2 favorites]

Aww, dammit. I wanted to be #300.
posted by Eideteker at 12:34 PM on November 5, 2006

PS: Flaming baby
posted by Eideteker at 12:37 PM on November 5, 2006

Eideteker... I think I missed the part where someone was holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read this.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:43 PM on November 5, 2006

That argument is a justification for how strongly you feel about this. It's not an argument for any other damn thing.

I think you might investigate the possibility that you deserve a Ferrari because you don't want to be a second-class citizen and the next time you lose your temper and kick your dog you might justify it because you don't want to be a second-class citizen.

I think you might investigate the possibility that you really are not understanding nor caring why he feels strongly about this. You obviously don't value the struggle at all, so you have to insult? Sad. And you speak of tolerance?
posted by amberglow at 12:50 PM on November 5, 2006

Eideteker : "It's the same 10 users out of 40,000 that are perpetuating this thread."

Yeah, we're using up the available letters! Quick, Matt, shut us down! If you let us go too long, people are going to be stuck typing only "q" and "z" in other threads!

But if Matt doesn't shut the thread down, there's only one other way to avoid the same 10 users perpetuating the thread: join us. With you, we will be 11, and one day, the world!!

Eideteker : "Commenter 4. 'HERE COMES A NEW CHALLENGER!!'"

That's awesome. From now on, that's how I'm going to join debate/argument threads.
posted by bugbread at 12:50 PM on November 5, 2006

Eideteker : "PS: Flaming baby"

That flaming baby looks kinda like my kid.

...minus the "being on fire" part, of course.
posted by bugbread at 12:52 PM on November 5, 2006

What happened to that baby? It doesn't look like it ends well...
posted by delmoi at 12:55 PM on November 5, 2006

I just like the the fact that the origional thread is still going strong. Between this and the original over 1400 posts have been made on the subject, and I didn't even know who the guy was before this.
posted by delmoi at 12:57 PM on November 5, 2006

It wasn't until I saw "DNAB" that I realized his name isn't really dirtynumbbagelboy.
posted by Alt F4 at 1:04 PM on November 5, 2006

"Eideteker... I think I missed the part where someone was holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read this."

It's taking up (or it was, before my diatribe) several screenlengths of my My Comments page. Meaning I had to scroll past it to check for recent activity, and that involves some amount of reading so that I don't skip three or four other threads as well. I've got to have some indication of when to stop scrolling.
posted by Eideteker at 1:11 PM on November 5, 2006

Eideteker... I think I missed the part where someone was holding a gun to your head, forcing you to read this.

Well, it is a bit of a pain to those of us who don't really give a shit but made pithy, facile comments just for shits and giggles a hundred comments ago and now have this crap stinking up our respective "My Comments" pages.

If there is a lesson to be learned here, it is to not comment just for the heck of it.

Or, if you're going to comment just for the heck of it, do it often enough so that old stale shit like this slides off your "My Comments" page.

I'm leaning towards the latter.

Also: Neo-Pagan?!? So, you only run naked through new growth forests, or what?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:13 PM on November 5, 2006

Alvy Ampersand writes "Also: Neo-Pagan?!? So, you only run naked through new growth forests, or what?"

Er, no. 'Pagan' isn an appropriate descriptor, as all of the current religious movements called 'Paganism' are recreations (very, very loose recreations in some cases) of religions from way back when. I think that neo-Pagan is more accurate.

To get even more accurate, I'd need to add in words like 'pantheist' and so on. But it's not really relevant.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:20 PM on November 5, 2006

"One could always sidestep the whole issue by avoiding the hardline "tolerance is always a virtue" stance, too."

Yes. But that's why I came up with the formulation I came up with. It was the result of my sense that most people are right in thinking that tolerance is inherently a virtue. It seemed clear to me that the idea of tolerance as it is usually discussed couldn't possibly be inherently a virtue because there's no virtue in tolerating that which everyone agrees is wrong. People like languagehat sort of ignore the problem and just think of bad stuff that we should tolerate and bad stuff we shouldn't and come up with some rationale for distinguishing between the two. His is "actively harming someone".

But I've long had a big problem with this sort of thinking because it really is just a slightly more nuanced absolutism. Sure, where we used to have two distinctions: bad and good where bad was to be intolerated and good to be encouraged, this "new" system has bad not to be tolerated, bad to be tolerated, uncertain to be tolerated, and good to be encouraged. But that's far, far less useful than most people suppose because it is my observation that how these "tolerant" people map human behaviors into these categories results in their own behavior which is mostly indistinguishable from the behavior of the supposedly intolerant people.¹ Intolerant people have always been forced to tolerate other people and behaviors they think are wrong. How, exactly, are the bad-but-should-tolerate behaviors the tolerant tolerate any different from the bad-and-shouldn't-but-am-forced-to-tolerate behaviors the intolerant tolerate? They're not. At best, this notion of tolerance just slightly encourages a sort of acceptance of having to tolerate what one would choose otherwise not to tolerate.

Finding this notion of tolerance—that is, tolerating things that are bad is somehow a virtue—essentially meaningless, I looked to what I thought were the impulses behind regarding tolerance as a virtue as a guide to discovering how it actually might be.

Certainly, one view of tolerance is that it's simply accepting that life inevitably must suck in some ways. In that sense tolerance might be said to be a virtue in the same way that realism is a virtue. But it doesn't seem to me that this is what those who really do feel virtue is greatly found in tolerance are aiming for. Specifically, tolerance involves other people and their ethical beliefs, not just actions. Perhaps not really their actions.

We can see this by looking at how they define intolerance and the sorts of people at whom they point to to provide examples of it. The nearby example of being outraged at the intolerance of Christians believing non-Christians are going to Hell is revealing. It's a belief that the Christians hold which the non-Christians find to be intolerant, and it is the belief (or non-belief) of the non-Christians which the non-Christians believe is the object of the Christians intolerance. At root, Christians thinking that non-Christians are bad people is the intolerance that so offends the non-Christians.

To move in a bit of a different direction, we should also look at the historical development in the West of the notion of tolerance as a virtue. What's very important to notice is that tolerance was both first advocated and practiced before most of our cultures were forced to be multicutural. That is to say, tolerance as a virtue began to be recognized before it was practically necessary that it be recognized. This is partly the result of the rise of cultural relativism in the early to middle-part of the 20th century.

And the core idea of cultural relativism where it intersects moral relativism is that other people in other environments do not have radically divergent ethical beliefs because they are ignorant, or badly-intentioned, or evil, or deluded by authority, but rather because it's easier for two completely independent people who are informed, well-meaning, and thoughtful to diverge on matters of morality than it is for them to agree. We shouldn't tolerate other cultures even though they are wrong, we should tolerate them because we cannot say with certainty that they are wrong. (And that's with or without philosophical relativism: you can merely believe that the Truth is very elusive and come to the same conclusions.)

And then let us look at tolerance as most of us practice it in a daily manner. That is, when we tolerate differences in our friends, our family, and to a lesser extent our coworkers. Here, we generally don't tolerate them even though they are bad people. We tolerate them because we believe they are good people despite the fact that they believe things we disbelieve and do things in accordance with those beliefs that we think are bad things to do. It's not delusion out of love², mostly, that causes us to think that these people are generally well-intentioned. It's because most of them are. Not in all things, certainly, but I've rarely known anyone who thinks of themselves as uniquely and pervasively better-intentioned, more thoughtful, more informed, than all or most of the people closest to them that they love and yet differ in beliefs with. For example, I think I am notably more thoughtful and informed than all of my family and some of my friends. But I certainly don't think that I'm notably better intentioned. And where I disagree with them, I don't think of them as bad people, except for the ones who are. Which is very few of them. And I learned this about those few from experience, not from the specifics of their beliefs.

From all this as a starting point I formulated the idea that tolerance as a virtue, and as a practice with large social utility, is the tolerance of assuming that other people are as well-intentioned and thoughtful and informed as oneself is. (Note that I don't believe that one is bound to continue to believe this given sufficient contrary evidence.)

It's a virtue because it's not so ambiguous a principle for action that it is meaningless in practice: the point at which one is forced to abandon such an assumption is tricky, and has important consequences directly related to what I'm discussing, but, even so, the injunction to at first assume these things is absolute. It has profound consequences. It makes it very difficult to remove whole classes of people from consideration a priori. It makes it impossible to treat individual people as nothing more than a placeholder for an abstract class of people who hold a particular view. It makes hate very difficult because hate is easiest to justify by believing that the object of hate is a bad person. It makes it almost impossible to hate someone for merely being an individual who holds a specific belief or who has some other characteristic—a form of hating that is the core of bigotry.

Furthermore, in the context of social policy and democracy, it doesn't require everyone to leave their sense of ethics and morality outsides the polling booth door. (As if anyone ever does, which they don't.) And it doesn't assert that there is any behavior that I must tolerate from my fellow citizens. I am still free to work through my own ethical code, to decide, as languagehat does, to make "active harm to others" my litmus test and to vote on that basis. And while it allows (or, more correctly, does not disallow) my being active in a democracy about how I think our society should be structured, it does effectively forbid me from disallowing other people a place at the civic table solely on the basis that their beliefs are noxious to me. Make no mistake: saying that someone could only have belief X because they are bad people is an attempt to invalidate everything about them, including their voice and their participation in civil society.

It is possible to turn this on its head. If one thinks that most people are, by and large, badly-intentioned and ignorant and thoughtless, then my view of tolerance is seen as a delusional invitation for all those bad people to do all their bad deeds. I don't really see how in this view of the human universe tolerance could be a virtue in the sense I think most people who espouse it think of it, although I do see how it could be a stoic virtue. But there's not much to talk about, either. It's like saying accepting the inevitability of death is a virtue. Is this an important civic "virtue"? Not really.

1. Aside from the distinctions that fall merely out of having divergent ethical systems as guides. The culturally conservative and the culturally progressive hold to two largely divergent ethical systems and it is the progressives who have taken on this notion of tolerance as a virtue. What results from this is that the progressives wrongly associate their notion of tolerance with the numerous ways in which their ethical system differs from the conservatives. They falsely believe this validates their notion of the utility of their view of tolerance. But this belief is disproved whenever two progressive ethical systems that hold to tolerance as a virtue conflict with regard to some other particular ethical belief. Very quickly, each accuses the other of being either intolerant or conservative, or both.

2. Some would say it is, and they'd be the ones that believe bad-intentions, ignorance, and thoughtlessness are nearly universal (in comparison with...them!). I think I address the implications of this point of view in my paragraph on seeing tolerance as a stoic virtue.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:26 PM on November 5, 2006

'I note also that you haven't addressed my point."

Mostly because your thinking on this is so lazy that it's not worth my effort.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:28 PM on November 5, 2006

Oh.. let me see if I've got this correct:

1) You make a ridiculous assertion
2) You get called on it
3) You refuse to respond, because we're clearly not intelligent enough to get it.


Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That's the final nail in the coffin of your credibility there.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:34 PM on November 5, 2006

EB: Your onslaught of verbiage has abashed and silenced me.

*goes off to order more paragraphs from Krupp*
posted by languagehat at 1:41 PM on November 5, 2006

"You obviously don't value the struggle at all, so you have to insult?"

This is why I can't take you seriously in any way. I've given moutains of evidence that I take this struggle very seriously and you know that evidence. Do I have to show you my membership cards to gay rights organizations? Do you require testimonials from my gay friends about how they've personally witnessed me fighting homphobic bigotry?

Apparently, because I think that dirtynumbangelboy is acting very badly, being hateful and otherwise displaying some of the traits he despises in his critics, and justifying this bad behavior by appealing to how badly he's been treated as a gay person...then somehow that means I "obviously don't care about this struggle at all". Bullshit. You are relentless in doing this sort of thing. As well as being so very disappointed in my (supposed) insult to dirtynumbangelboy and yet never once saying a word counter to dirtynumbangelboy repeated personal insults in this thread and the other one.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:43 PM on November 5, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "You refuse to respond, because we're clearly not intelligent enough to get it."

That's not what he said. (Not that what he said was much better, but it certainly wasn't 'languagehat is too dumb to get my argument').
posted by bugbread at 1:43 PM on November 5, 2006

And, EB, I'm sorry to say it, but both lh and I have been cowed by that novella a few comments up, and I know you put a lot of effort into it, but I doubt anyone is going to read it in its entirety. You've got to think of this place more like a long conversation, not like a speech roundtable. Long is fine from time to time, but practically speaking, when it gets that long, your readership may drop to zero.
posted by bugbread at 1:46 PM on November 5, 2006

I shall be printing both threads out once/if this ends to try and follow all the arguments. I might learn something. Or just get confused.
posted by econous at 1:50 PM on November 5, 2006

Don't worry EB I'll be reading.
posted by econous at 1:52 PM on November 5, 2006

bugbread writes "That's not what he said. (Not that what he said was much better, but it certainly wasn't 'languagehat is too dumb to get my argument')."

That is the absolutely clear implication of what he said.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:52 PM on November 5, 2006

dirtynumbangelboy : "That is the absolutely clear implication of what he said."

The implication of what he said is "Your thinking was sloppy so you came to a silly conclusion that I'm not going to bother addressing". That's very different than "You're too dumb to understand it even if I addressed it". (It's still an obnoxious statement, don't get me wrong, but EB was definitely not saying languagehat was too dumb to understand a counterargument).

Saying someone has sloppy thinking is not the same as saying they're unintelligent; plenty of intelligent people think about things sloppily every day.
posted by bugbread at 2:09 PM on November 5, 2006

"EB: Your onslaught of verbiage has abashed and silenced me."

I would have hoped that bugbread's pointing out of the elementary logical error you used as the lynchpin of your counterargument would have been what abashed and silenced you. Putting all our history aside, both friendship and when we've annoyed each other, that you could make such a dumb logical error in so serious a discussion which requires careful thinking very much indicated the manner in which, and the equipment with which, you approached this conversation. Talking about tolerating actions as long as they "don't actively hurt other people" only made it worse. For reasons that you obliquely address when you later wrote, "yeah, but this is where the whole 'action' thing gets into murky waters."

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. That's the final nail in the coffin of your credibility there."

No, I did respond in my longest comment. And I didn't say that I didn't respond to languagehat because he was "clearly not intelligent enough to get it", I said what I repeated above, which is entirely different.

I do understand that you feel very, very strongly about all this. But you're running on almost nothing but emotion here, stringing words together that look like speech which results from rational thought, but isn't. Maybe in your passion, you can't tell the difference. But at some point you have to take responsibility for what you say and realize that many of your personal insults to konolia just can't be justified on the basis of how badly you've been treated as a gay person and how angry you are about it. Furthermore, since it seems elementary logical errors are all the rage these days, you and everyone else might do well to note that a criticism of your behavior is not a defense of konolia's, or homphobes, or anything other than a criticism of your behavior. Behave better and you'll get no criticism from me. I think you are aware, though amberglow isn't, that I do agree with all your viewpoints and am active in gay rights myself. You know, though amberglow doesn't, that I care very deeply about this and I am more aware of how it feels to be a gay man in a homophobic society than many people think I do. I also agree that righteous anger about this issue is appropriate. The only thing I don't agree with is how you've chosen to act on that righteous anger. Well, that and the arguments you've used to justify that behavior. I've made claims about what this behavior and those arguments reveal about you. And I won't back down from asserting that they are certainly very suggestive of those things. But I will back down some and say that I am aware, and will remind myself, that when people are very angry and speaking or writing recklessly they often behave in ways, and use arguments, that say things about them that aren't really accurate. I'll assume this is the case and retract any statements I've made about your character.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:09 PM on November 5, 2006

It's the difference between "saying something dumb" and "being dumb".
posted by bugbread at 2:10 PM on November 5, 2006

Whoops. That comment was supposed to go immediately after my previous comment, but EB's post snuck in between 'em.
posted by bugbread at 2:12 PM on November 5, 2006

EB may not be gay, but based on this old statement, I think he may have a very slightly better sense of what it is like to be gay than a lot of us other straight posters (hope I'm not bothering you by bringing this old comment up, EB).
posted by bugbread at 2:19 PM on November 5, 2006

"And, EB, I'm sorry to say it, but both lh and I have been cowed by that novella a few comments up, and I know you put a lot of effort into it, but I doubt anyone is going to read it in its entirety. You've got to think of this place more like a long conversation, not like a speech roundtable. Long is fine from time to time, but practically speaking, when it gets that long, your readership may drop to zero."

You're right and point taken. However, there was no way I was going to be able to defend my formulation of what tolerance really is (or should be) in just a few words. And by the time that I got to the point of writing that comment, my strong feeling was that I didn't want to be in this thread at all anymore but that an explanation of my idea of tolerance would probably end up being the only thing really valuable that I would contribute. So I wrote it the way I felt it need to be written (at minimum) and I am leaving it at that.

I am completely, utterly disillusioned of the idea that productive conversation comes out of places like these. MetaFilter is among the very, very best, and what's wrong with how people argue everywhere is still bad enough here that it makes 99 threads out of a 100 just as useless as the threads anywhere else. I can't stomach those 99 threads anymore. I can't stomach the mode of discourse where amberglow can take my criticism of dirtynumbangelboy's bad behavior and jump from that to an accusation that I don't really care about gay rights.

At rock bottom, and this sentence will be full of ironies, what I can no longer tolerate is the almost universal impulse that people have to believe that any sort of disagreement is a sign of bad-intent or dishonesty or some other character fault rather than simply being the sign of someone who has come to different conclusions. Every debate about any topic that is socially important becomes, instantly, people looking for signs of where true affiliations supposedly are. Everything is argued about as if everything is already known, the truth is evident, and any differences of opinion are the result of some defect in character. You can see where my notion of tolerance fits in and why I think it's important. At root, the entire debate in the blue about gays and Christians is a debate about which group of people (or individuals in the thread) are "really" the bad people that are trying to hurt other people by saying things that aren't true, or whatever. That's all it ever amounts to. It's arguments about social policy that have as their basis the moral comprehension of kindergardeners. Every fucking thread is like this. What happens in threads about obesity? They become threads about just who the bad people are: the haters on the obese or the irresponisble obese destroying the health care system. (Or the view at the beach.) Everybody reacts to everything as if the person they are disagreeing with is a mustache-twirling villain from a melodrama.

And you know what? I think this nearly-universal impulse is the problem. It's at the bottom of a lot of other problems which just fall out of it naturally. And from that perspective, I stop caring so much about whether someone has what I think is the correct position on gay rights or women's rights or whatever. I just start noticing that we still haven't gone much beyond clubbing each other over the heads. We just do it rhetorically most of the time. I'm sick of it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:24 PM on November 5, 2006

No. Many if not most of us do not respond to righteous anger in the way you do and did--we try to put ourselves in others' shoes and understand if they're upset and why they're upset. We don't insult them and belittle their anger as you did.

I can't stomach the mode of discourse where amberglow can take my criticism of dirtynumbangelboy's bad behavior and jump from that to an accusation that I don't really care about gay rights.
It's not even about gay rights, but about other human beings. dirtynumb is mad at konolia and explained why that was so repeatedly--and you had to jump in to insult him? what possibly made you think that was a response that was at all conducive to "discourse"? Why even criticize bad behavior that's a result of another member's bad behavior to begin with? Especially if you want "discourse"?
posted by amberglow at 2:42 PM on November 5, 2006

Yes. But that's why I came up with the formulation I came up with. It was the result of my sense that most people are right in thinking that tolerance is inherently a virtue ... [snip 1600 words] ... I don't really see how in this view of the human universe tolerance could be a virtue in the sense I think most people who espouse it think of it, although I do see how it could be a stoic virtue. But there's not much to talk about, either. It's like saying accepting the inevitability of death is a virtue. Is this an important civic "virtue"? Not really.

EB try to punch it up a bit.

The basic problem with trying to define general intolerance, as a bad thing is that it causes you to reject yourself. To say "Gay sex is intolerable" does not create an innate contradiction, but to say, "Intolerance is intolerable" does.

However, we can get around this by enumerating the things which we believe must be tolerated To say "People who do not tolerate X1, X2, ... ,XN are intolerable" is also not contradictory. I believe the following is not contradictory:

1) I tolerate all people who are universally tolerant
2) I tolerate people who tolerate everyone except those intolerant about someone.

The only problem is that you will end up tolerating people who don't tolerate you for your own intolerance.

Think of a venn diagram with three concentric circles. In the largest superset, you have all people. In that is a hole, representing the intolerant. Everyone outside the hole is universally tolerant, everyone inside the hole is intolerant.

In the hole there is an island, representing only the meta-intolerant, people who are intolerant only of people within the boundary of the hole. The people on the island are not being hypocritical if they say they don't tolerate people in the hole but not the island.
posted by delmoi at 2:46 PM on November 5, 2006

amberglow : "Why even criticize bad behavior that's a result of another member's bad behavior to begin with?"

Because it's bad behaviour?

Personally speaking (and this is purely personal), I'm always far bothered by someone I agree with being a dick than someone I disagree with.

delmoi : "However, we can get around this by enumerating the things which we believe must be tolerated To say 'People who do not tolerate X1, X2, ... ,XN are intolerable' is also not contradictory."

I was actually thinking, earlier in the thread, about the whole Gödel renumeration of sets, and recursiveness, and the like, but I just ended up spinning my own head around and confusing myself.
posted by bugbread at 2:53 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

"EB may not be gay, but based on this old statement, I think he may have a very slightly better sense of what it is like to be gay than a lot of us other straight posters (hope I'm not bothering you by bringing this old comment up, EB)."

Crap, you suck me back in. ;)

Certainly I probably have a better sense than anyone who's not tried having sex with someone their own sex. That's not very relevant, though. It doesn't at all give me perspective on what it's like to be on the outside, looking in. And everything else.

But since you've brought it up. First, the reaction to that comment here (and others I've made elsewhere, as well as my general indifference to society's expectations about how I conduct my sex life) gave me some valuable insight. It was brought up over and over and over and over again in obvious attempts to embarass me. It's never embarassed me, but the expectation that others had that it would gave me a sort of second-hand understanding of what it's like to live in a society where the dominant poitn of view is such that my comment is something that was expected to humiliate. I got a different taste of that, as well, when my mom discovered a web page about me, an attack page, that featured that quote prominently. And the thing is, although she denied it, I think that having that quote out front and center bothered her more than almost anything else in the attack. She actually cried about this, and a lot of the tears were the result of being confronted with just how willfully vicious people on the net can be, but a portion of them had a bit to do with that quote. She said, "What if you cousin Samantha were to see this?" Sam is a thirteen year old girl that I dote upon and she adores me. Of course my response was, "Well, what if she does?"

To be fair to my mom, I don't think she's hardly homophobic at all and I should be carefull about even implying that she is. When I was about 20 I went through a period where I was convinved that I was gay and of course I immediately told her. (I told her when I lost my viriginty at 15, too, that's the kind of relationship we've always had.) Anyway, she was entirely accepting. The only negative thing she said was that she thought that my dad my be weirded out about it and maybe I oughtn't tell him.

During that period, I also came out to my closest friends. My very closest friend at the time was made very uncomfortable by it, and I think he's still a bit of a homophobe, but to his credit he was cool about it. Mostly he just ignored it. And, not too long after, I came to the conclusion that I really didn't enjoy gay sex that much and I was as obsessed with girls as I always had been. So for a long time I sort of decided I was mildly bi.

I'm really not, though, as I've experimented with gay sex now a handful of times and it's always been sort of "meh". Some things were pleasurable in their own right. But just finding one thing or another mechanically pleasurable doesn't indicate much, in my opinion. Was the whole experience itself inherently sexually attractive? Not really. Can I imagine falling in love with another man? Not at all (and, believe me, I wish I could).

So, given whatever my sexuality is, I've been active in gay rights since the eighties.

But also since 1991 I've had the closest and best friendship of my entire life with a gay man. I used to say this to him when I was younger and more foolish (and thus less sensitive to what it was like on his end of our friendship), but there are many, many times when I wish I could just fall in love with him and marry him and spend the rest of my life with him. Except, you know, I don't really want to have sex with him. I love him, but it's a sexless love. In fact, I had a dream the other night where someone was threatening me and, to my horror, had kidnapped someone I cared about and was about to kill them. The kick of the dream sequence was that I didn't know who the person was, it was the moment of the "reveal". And as the door was opened and I saw it was my friend, I was filled with this horror and fear because there was no question that this was the one person I care about more in my life than anyone else (which is true right now, but when I've been in relationships, he's been less important to me than my SO). Anyway, the villain in my dream announced this by opening the door and sarcastically saying "I have your 'brother'". Which I woke up and thought was interesting because I don't think of him as my brother, but it was interesting to me that my subconscious felt it was the best way to make the depth of how I feel most literal.

Anyway, I've been active in gay rights for a long time, long before I met my friend. But we are very close, been roomates off-and-on, and he's just as verbal and intellectual and touchy-feely as I am. I've spent sixteen years trying to understand as best I can what it's been like for him to be a gay man in our homophobic society. I'm conscious of him all the time when the the subject comes up. I make no apologies to anyone, ever, that he's gay and by that I mean that I don't male allowances for the fact that people might be uncomfortable if they find out. If they know me, they already know. Because that's who he is.

And so, really, in the context of all that, does sucking a cock a few times really tell me anything at all compared to perhaps the most important relationship of my adult life and what I've tried to learn from it? Not really. And what I can understand is limited. It's limited enough that I can't talk about it, and I don't. When amberglow or whomever attacks my commitment to gay rights, I don't say, "my best friend..." because that's a cliche and an invitation for a different kind of attack. But the truth of the matter is that you can't love someone and know them for sixteen years as a peer (not as a parent or child or sibling) and not begin to understand some of these things. I understand them about as well as a straight man can. And I care about them a lot. Does that have any relevance to my anger at how dirtynumbangelboy was attacking konolia? Not really. It's no more relevant than his own experiences are as a justification for his attacks on konolia.

I think I ought to articulate just a bit better than I have why my own experiences (or those of another famous mefite who has also less famously had some gay exploits) really doesn't provide much insight into what it's like to be a homosexual in a homophobic society. What it really comes down to is that sexual orientation is (for better or worse, innately or culturally) very, very close to personal and social identity. Where the oppression and bigotry really hurt is in the personal identity and social identity spheres, and unless someone lives as a gay person for a good long while in a homophobic culture, he or she just really can't possibly "get" just what this is like.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:53 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

At rock bottom, and this sentence will be full of ironies, what I can no longer tolerate is the almost universal impulse that people have to believe that any sort of disagreement is a sign of bad-intent or dishonesty or some other character fault rather than simply being the sign of someone who has come to different conclusions.

Sorry you feel that way. I find that trait highly annoying.
posted by delmoi at 2:54 PM on November 5, 2006

Thanks, EB. I started to write something a few minutes ago in response to your last post, then got derailed by trying to lighten up that other thread. I was going to say something about how I, as an out gay man since the 1980s had seen and heard more of these sort of screaming matches than I ever wanted to. About how trying to stop your enemies by calling them scumbag-asswhole-moronic-cunt-crack-whores was sort of like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. About how it's time to simply stop and take a few deep breaths. Really.

I'm the sort of person who lurks, listens, tries not to assume that I have a great deal to contribute. (I hear someone saying I don't...) After all these years, I do know that rage, while satisfying in many ways, destroys so much more than it builds.

This comment is going to get lost in a pile of anger and accusation, I know. But for just a moment, I'm saying thanks.
posted by Robert Angelo at 3:16 PM on November 5, 2006

Late back to this thread...perhaps some of you might feel it is mildly ironic that my son-in-law is African American and my upcoming grandbaby will be biracial.

I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights.

That is all.
posted by konolia at 3:19 PM on November 5, 2006

"I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights. "

Others of us think it's an apt comparison and, furthermore, doesn't it bother you a teensy bit that you're all for progressive values when you happen to have a pesonal interest in them?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:40 PM on November 5, 2006

konolia writes "I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights. "

What's the difference? Wasn't there Biblical condemnation of interracial marriages etc?

Or is this yet more of the typically fundamentalist picking-and-choosing? That does absolutely nothing whatsoever to bolster your contention that you're not a hate-spewing bigoted homophobe, you know.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:40 PM on November 5, 2006

I resent the comparison to gay rights.

Of course you do. Because it smacks you in the face with your own loathsome hypocrisy and, for a split second, unsettles your grotesquely rigid worldview.
posted by scody at 3:41 PM on November 5, 2006 [9 favorites]

And, Robert, thanks for saying "thanks". :)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:41 PM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "Others of us think it's an apt comparison and, furthermore, doesn't it bother you a teensy bit that you're all for progressive values when you happen to have a pesonal interest in them?"

No, that would require her to actually think.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:43 PM on November 5, 2006

Why are we giving that attention whore what she's looking for? It's obvious she doesn't give a shit what anyone but herself has to say.
posted by clevershark at 3:44 PM on November 5, 2006

scody writes "Of course you do. Because it smacks you in the face with your own loathsome hypocrisy and, for a split second, unsettles your grotesquely rigid worldview."

You deserve a standing ovation and a beer, my man.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 3:45 PM on November 5, 2006

woman
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:45 PM on November 5, 2006

I think this nearly-universal impulse is the problem.

I agree with you. And I actually read that entire most recent comment (unless you've snuck another one in while I type) and was moved and impressed by it. You're a good guy, even if you do get impatient with me and unwarrantedly dismissive.

I'm sorry you dropped by again, konolia. You've just lowered my opinion of you further. Bad enough when jonmc felt obliged to post a picture of himself with his black friends to establish street cred, but for you to brandish your black son-in-law and future biracial baby to further bash gays is repellent. And hey, what if that biracial kid turns out to be gay? Oh no, off to hell with him!
posted by languagehat at 3:47 PM on November 5, 2006

Argh, you snuck three comments in! But you know which one I meant...
posted by languagehat at 3:47 PM on November 5, 2006

it is mildly ironic that my son-in-law is African American and my upcoming grandbaby will be biracial.

To repeat (from the MeFi thread) --

How do you feel about those Christians who condemn interracial marriage and would consider your biracial grandson to be an abomination in the eyes of their Lord? And what happens if your grandson turns out to be "gay?" What then?
posted by ericb at 3:55 PM on November 5, 2006

konolia : "I resent the comparison to gay rights. "

scody : "Of course you do. Because it smacks you in the face with your own loathsome hypocrisy and, for a split second, unsettles your grotesquely rigid worldview."

I doubt it. That's what we wish would be the cause of her resentment, but I think it's looking at things with very, very Optimistic Rose^® tinted lenses to think that that's why she's actually resenting the comparison.
posted by bugbread at 4:03 PM on November 5, 2006

I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights.

Well -- others fell and have felt differently --

Coretta Scott King:

"I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.' I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people." [March 1998]

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood. This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." [April 1998]

"We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny...I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be...I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy." [April 1998]

"Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination." [November 2000]

So, what does your black son-in-law think about Mrs. King's comments. What do you think?
posted by ericb at 4:04 PM on November 5, 2006 [5 favorites]

Were we running out of bombs? Thanks, Konolia, for making sure that this thread won't be lulled to sleep by EB (though I have to admit that I DID read the whole thing and found it very interesting).

So interesting, and weirdly moving, that I'm not even gonna wade back into here to address the quibbles and disagreements and bad-faith arguments that have been weeds in the garden of this conversation.

I would like to point out that the problem of democracies allowing the polity the ability to negate through procedure their own freedom is one of the central issues of modern political theory (or at least post-war theory), and that is incredibly present in the discussions over the rights of conservative fundamentalists.
posted by klangklangston at 4:05 PM on November 5, 2006

"Wasn't there Biblical condemnation of interracial marriages etc?"

A lot of people think there is. I mean, some fundamentalist Christians are racists and believe that various racist beliefs are validated by the Bible. The belief that miscegenation is a sin is prominent among them. I've personally known someone in the last ten years that believed this. He was in a Pentecostal church in Amarillo. It's almost certain that someone even within konolia's own church believes this. It's almost certain that she could find a church local to her where more than a tiny minority believes this. Maybe even a lot of people in her church do believe this. But what the majority of people like her would do in that situation is just find another church that's like what she's comfortable with, excepting that one belief she's trying to get away from. Very rarely does it result in someone looking for a different sort of church altogether, one that is more interested in inclusion than condemnation.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:06 PM on November 5, 2006

*others feel*
posted by ericb at 4:07 PM on November 5, 2006

Bad enough when jonmc felt obliged to post a picture of himself with his black friends to establish street cred,

Posting that pic was a bad decision made in a heated conversation and I regretted doing it, even though I asked every person in the pic first. But I'm out of this clusterfuck (mainly because I (on very different levels like (for lack of a better word) both dirtynumbangelboy and konolia, and this whole conversation has pained me more than anything else). You're my friend, languagehat, so I'll cut you slack that you're trying to make a valid point, but nothing's ever gonna be resolved here, so I'd just as soon not be dragged back in.
posted by jonmc at 4:07 PM on November 5, 2006

I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights.

Race and Orientation: Not A False Analogy.

Also: if konolia's Christ's ambassador, does that make her the John Bolton of heaven?
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:10 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

It's taking up (or it was, before my diatribe) several screenlengths of my My Comments page.

Oh great. Now the "stop forcing me to read this" whiners have *another* thing to complain about. Seriously, Eideteker, that's gotta be the stupidest complaint about fellow members I've ever seen here. Take it up with Matt if you have a problem with the way the "my comments" pages work.

I resent the comparison to gay rights.

*pats konolia's head*

Yes, dear, of course you do.
posted by mediareport at 4:11 PM on November 5, 2006

Thanks, ericb, for the Coretta Scott King quote. You bring the voice of reason, as usual.
posted by leftcoastbob at 4:19 PM on November 5, 2006

all right, fuck it, I'm back in.

the fact that konolia is involved in racial reconciliation movements and simultaneously (at least tacitly) supports discrimination and homophobia is what's so frustrating a bout her and what makes me hold a tiny shred of hope.

konolia, the preachers you support are causing a lot of good people (including myself and family and friends) a lot of needless pain. And a few generations ago, many of those same preachers (or ones like them) twisted that same (beautiful and wise) book to cause needless grief to people like your son-in-law. and that's a damned shame. There's people and books that'll help you sort it all out. I sincerely hope you do, for your sake and (since you seem to get very devoted to causes you feel are right) the sake of a lot of other good people, too.
posted by jonmc at 4:23 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Good work, jonmc! That'll surely do it!
posted by mediareport at 4:25 PM on November 5, 2006

*instantly regrets posting last comment, apologizes, leaves keyboard*
posted by mediareport at 4:25 PM on November 5, 2006

leftcoastbob -- you're welcome.

BTW -- Mrs. King was a roommate of my mother at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, OH). Edythe Scott ("Corey's" sister) -- also at Antioch -- was a good friend of my mother.
posted by ericb at 4:27 PM on November 5, 2006

don't sweat it, mediareport. I've said worse in moments of frustration, and generally I like your stuff. and konolia's read stuff like this from me and still seems to like me, so what the hell...
posted by jonmc at 4:32 PM on November 5, 2006

Hey, anyone change their mind yet?

Didn't think so.
posted by xmutex at 4:32 PM on November 5, 2006

"Good work, jonmc! That'll surely do it!"

Yeah, that was snide, and jonmc's comment heartfelt, but basically you're right. You're not completely right, and jonmc has a point, because although everyone here is using konolia as a cardboard cutout conservative Christian villain, I've seen other things from her like this racial reconcilliation thing and my judgment is, like jonmc's, that konolia has better instincts than many of the people we are thinking of as our opponents and certainly better instincts than the stereotyped Christian conservative that is the target of much anger and for whom konolia is being used as their whipping boy.

Even so, most people don't change in the way that jonmc is hoping because—I'm going to beat this drum one last time—they are intolerant. Until you start considering the possibility that opposing viewpoints are more likely a product of good-faith error rather than bad-faith malice it's not going to really occur to you that your own beliefs, which you think are in good-faith, might be wrong just as you think other people's beliefs are wrong. My version of tolerance opens the door wide to an acceptance of personal fallibility which, in turn, invites change and improvement. As long as one see oneself as the good guy and everyone who disagrees the bad guys, there's a deeply self-reinforcing psychological resistance to change. Because there's a powerful appeal to thinking of oneself as one of the White Knights and there's powerful disincentive to even begin to consider a Black Knight position because, after all, they are the bad guys. To decide that one has been wrong in some sense, while simultaneously believing that one is naturally on the side of what's Good and Just, is in a way degrading oneself.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:39 PM on November 5, 2006

because although everyone here is using konolia as a cardboard cutout conservative Christian villain,

bingo! dirtnumb (correctly) criticizes konolia for seeing an amorphous mass of 'homosexuals" rather than individual human beings, yet he (and others) pin all their justified anger at the huge group known as the religious right on her since she's the visible available target. I'd be betraying my own sense of decency if I didn't say that was a little unfair, if understandable.
posted by jonmc at 4:49 PM on November 5, 2006

Poppycock. konolia walked into the first thread acting as Haggard's apologist, and has claimed that she's "God's ambassador." Some posters have been rude and mean to her, but it's not a role she didn't consciously take on.
posted by eustacescrubb at 4:59 PM on November 5, 2006

See, EB, you're trying to combine what I see as two different things in one Tolerance Value-Pak^TM. I completely agree with you about the acceptance of personal fallibility; I think it's one of the very most important qualities a thinking being can have. I also (obviously) agree about the importance of tolerance. But I don't think it's useful to combine the two. We want people to be tolerant even if they're smug about their own knowledge, and we want people to accept their own fallibility even if they're not tolerant. To tell them "I'll call you tolerant only if you're also willing to admit you're wrong" is to invite a dismissive shrug. One of your own faults (if I may be so bold) is an intellectual arrogance that makes it too easy for you to dismiss everything someone else has to say because (to pick an example at random) they made an elementary logical error at another point in the discussion. You expect perfection of yourself and others, and you're doomed to disappointment on that score.

jonmc: Sorry about dragging you back in; I got irritated at konolia, and irritation makes it hard to rein oneself in.
posted by languagehat at 4:59 PM on November 5, 2006

Ethereal Bligh writes "Until you start considering the possibility that opposing viewpoints are more likely a product of good-faith error rather than bad-faith malice it's not going to really occur to you that your own beliefs, which you think are in good-faith, might be wrong just as you think other people's beliefs are wrong."

Whether it's the former or the latter is immaterial. She is a bigot, and believes that I am not deserving of the same rights as she is. The cause matters not at all. She will not change, she does not have the mental toolkit to even consider the possibility of change. There is no 'seeing her side'.

And yet again, I reference clevershark's comment: "You know, it seems in bad form to tell someone 'look over there, there's a rabid mob with pitchforks and torches here to lynch you, why don't you stop and consider their point of view.'"

That is precisely what you are doing, and frankly, it's deeply insulting.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:00 PM on November 5, 2006

On non-preview: it's not unfair, jonmc. If you stand up for vicious bigotry, you deserve what you get; if you've established a pleasant enough persona that people cut you some slack they might not cut a stranger, that's nice for you, but it's not deserved. Lots of "nice" people are willing servants of evil (if you believe in the concept of evil); that's one of the sad facts about humanity. As grating as I've found dirtynumbangelboy's rhetoric, he's on my side of the fence here (and yours, I assume); to use language konolia can understand, he's on the side of the angels and she's on the side of the devil. She thinks it's the other way around, of course, which makes for black humor if you never liked her and sadness if you did.
posted by languagehat at 5:04 PM on November 5, 2006

She will not change, she does not have the mental toolkit to even consider the possibility of change.

We differ on that. As I said before, if we give up on the idea of positive human change, we might as well fuck it and go bowling.

There is no 'seeing her side'.

I'm not asking you to. Let me handle that. When you said you 'lost respect' for me, that kind of depressed me, since I've always admired your style, astuteness and insistence on individuality, and thought you had a fine sense of decency and a sense of humor, so forgive me if I go overboard trying to explain myself.

languagehat: don't worry about it, but as someone who's met both you and EB in person, lemme tell you, you two would get along great in person.
posted by jonmc at 5:06 PM on November 5, 2006

you two would get along great in person.

Oh, I'm quite sure of that, and I imagine he wouldn't disagree. All this shouting over the internets makes it harder than when you can see each other's expressions and buy each other beers. But he knows I like and respect him.

As for you, though... you're a mook!
posted by languagehat at 5:10 PM on November 5, 2006

Well, except for the fact that there's not a mob with pitchforks coming for you and, even if there were, we know that konolia isn't one of them. If you inflate imminent danger enough you can always say "no reason to consider their point of view". An occupant of the White House is very adept at this thinking, too. And in his case, there really are those bombs. You can try to argue that konolia and the occasional gay-basher are one-and-the-same, but I think you know as well as I do that at worst she's an enabler. And the thing is, while enabling is a Bad Thing, conflating them with the folks wielding pitchforks is a good way to just begin to indiscriminately get your hate on. As, again, we see among the crowd who prefer to use the term islamofascist. They don't see a difference between suicide bombers and your average fundamentalist Muslim, just as you don't see a difference between a gay-basher and your average fundamentalist Christian. And they don't want to, any more than you do. Hating large groups of people with supposed complete justification is an addictive drug.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:12 PM on November 5, 2006

to use language konolia can understand, he's on the side of the angels and she's on the side of the devil.

on this issue, I don't deny that. But, is it really so wrong that I expend a little effort trying to get her to see the light, so to speak? The very fact that at some point she felt the need to be 'born again,' tells me that maybe she's not completely inured to the idea of change. If Dr. King had given up on the idea of positive human change, where would we be now?

Passing laws and legal change is of the utmost importance and should be pursued relentlessly, but just like crime will not go away until we attack it's root causes, racism won't go away until we work on the racists and homophobia wont go away until we work on the homophobes. That's my mission. I'll keep tilting at that windmill, until I get tired and go tilt at a ginmill.
posted by jonmc at 5:12 PM on November 5, 2006

When gays start actively fomenting hate against Christians by spending lots of their money and getting their fellow Christo-phobic gays elected through an irrational appeal to a fear of the other, then Ethereal Bligh, I promise I'll come back to this thread and read every tedious, half-baked, overly verbose comments you made. Because they will have some relevance to what we're talking about. Until then, you remain one of the most intellectualy vacuous people I've ever encountered.

All forms of intolerance are not equal. My personal intolerance of fundies is very much an intellectual and, yes, an esthetic one. I'm happy to debate them, I'm happy to point out the gaps in their logic, I'm happy to let them know that I love people just as much as they do, and have a capacity for joy like them, in spite of my atheism. Their horrible taste in music really bugs me though. However, I do like NASCAR, to there's a start for reconciliation.

However, these people want to take away my friends' rights to marry, spend time with, or frankly, fuck whomever they want regardless of gender (with other consenting adults, obviously).

Notice the qualitative difference?
posted by bardic at 5:16 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Oh, I'm quite sure of that, and I imagine he wouldn't disagree. All this shouting over the internets makes it harder than when you can see each other's expressions and buy each other beers

I'd buy the two of you beers just to sit there and soak up the discourse.

As for you, though... you're a mook!

Heh. The first time I met EB in person was as a result of a drunken 2am phone call where I was accompanied by my drunk future wife and two other drunken mefites fresh from a punk show and we were about to order room service tequila. I probably confirmed every negative jonmc streotype in one fell swoop. ;>
posted by jonmc at 5:18 PM on November 5, 2006

jonmc writes "I'm not asking you to. Let me handle that. When you said you 'lost respect' for me, that kind of depressed me, since I've always admired your style, astuteness and insistence on individuality, and thought you had a fine sense of decency and a sense of humor, so forgive me if I go overboard trying to explain myself."

I've admired the same about you, which is why it makes me sad that a nice mask on a face of hate can sucker you in so easily.

Ethereal Bligh writes "even if there were, we know that konolia isn't one of them."

She supports those who are. That makes her no different. Enabling is the same as doing, in cases like these.

And before you start blasting, I think the same thing about a great many other causes. Every Muslim who does not stand up and decry the acts of terrorism committed in the name of their religion is an enabler (and believe me, I know that the overwhelming majority of Muslims would spit on terrorists). Every American who does not speak out against the massacre in Iraq is enabling the war. Every Christian who does not stand up and say "Our religion is about peace and love, and not the hate that these people spew" is enabling that hatred.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:19 PM on November 5, 2006

I've admired the same about you, which is why it makes me sad that a nice mask on a face of hate can sucker you in so easily.

Trust me, it wasn't so easy. I used to (and often still do) have the same knee-jerk reaction to fundy idiocy, but it's mixed with a weird kind of...compassion? pity?

I do truly believe that prejudices don't go away until we work on the holders of those prejudices as much as legalities, so I guess will have to agree to disgaree on this.
posted by jonmc at 5:24 PM on November 5, 2006

(and I appreciate that the above is easier for me to say than for you, foe what it's worth)
posted by jonmc at 5:25 PM on November 5, 2006

Many folks in this thread have been tossing around the phrase "moral absolutism" as though it were a dirty four letter word. Bear with me, everyone, for 5 minutes of Intro to Ethics!

Moral absolutism comes in two flavors. There is a descriptive claim: "When we look at the world, we see that all human cultures appear to have at least one ethical belief in common." Perhaps, for example, all cultures appear to hold "human lives have value" as an ethical belief. There is also a normative claim: "There is at least one universally applicable ethical standard across all human cultures." For example, no matter what those cannibals over there think about eating people, you might think that eating people is wrong for everyone and anyone, and those cannibals are just making bad ethical judgments.

It is important to note that neither variety of moral absolutism involves a claim that all of my or my culture's own ethical beliefs are correct. It is not even a claim that anyone knows exactly what the universal ethical standard(s) is/are. It is an incredibly weak thesis; it is not a pejorative.

Moral relativism is the negation of moral absolutism. It also comes in descriptive-"When we look at the world's cultures, we can find no universally shared ethical belief"-and normative-"There is no universally applicable ethical standard across the world's cultures"-varietals. It is a matter of some controversy amongst the experts whether either descriptive or normative moral relativism or descriptive or normative moral absolutism is correct (if you're interested, here is a good place to start).

For the purposes of this thread, I think it's important to note that some people are driven to normative moral relativism because they believe that being a normative moral relativist allows them to be tolerant of the moral beliefs of other folks. However, this just isn't so. If you think that "being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs" is true, but you are a normative relativist-you think that your tolerance is not a universal human virtue but rather only moral relative to your own culture-suppose that you meet Bob, who is outside of your culture. Then your normative relativism obligates you to be tolerant of Bob's moral belief: "Being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs is a bunch of hogwash." As a relativist, your feeling of tolerance is moral relative to your culture. And Bob's intolerance is moral relative to his culture. But then what's so great about tolerance of other folks' moral beliefs? You and Bob are both moral! There's no reason why you shouldn't think like Bob-you'd still be moral, just relative to his culture instead of yours. Your tolerance is just an accident of your culture, and your moral position wouldn't be any worse-you'd have to say-if you were intolerant like Bob.

If that doesn't sound like what we wanted, the other option is to think that "being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs" is a universal human virtue-in which case you are now a normative absolutist! Short version: if you think that being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs is a virtue for you and me and everyone else, welcome to normative absolutism.

Relativism has a bunch of other nasty consequences regarding how we carve up cultures; hopefully it isn't true. But probably, a good chunk of you are bored already and that discussion isn't directly relevant, so I'll put them in my back pocket.

My students pay me for that lecture; y'all get it for free.
posted by Kwine at 5:27 PM on November 5, 2006 [4 favorites]

"Until then, you remain one of the most intellectualy vacuous people I've ever encountered."

You're one of those people who like to use the term "pseudo-intellectual", aren't you?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:29 PM on November 5, 2006

I promised myself long ago to stay away from these type of discussions, but there's a confluence of issues here about LDS vis-a-vis people of color, racism, and related social issues like gay rights that almost begs a post of one of my favorite religion factoids.

The Church of Jesus Chris of Latter Day Saints did not allow black people into the priesthood of the church until June 8, 1978. Yup, a mere 28 years ago. This was an official church policy; you can verify the fact in many places, probably including official church history. Many people claim that the church's possible impending loss of tax-free status due to racist doctrine was the cause. The official reason for the change was that God's wishes were revealed to the president of the LDS -- several changes in church policy have come through such revelations.

In light of how long a policy change on racial issues took (racism was not and had not been accepted for a while in almost all other parts of organized society by the late 70's), I would not anticipate any devout Mormon changing his or her beliefs on homosexuality in the near future. Perhaps never, if current LDS teachings prevail. And in defense of Mormons, if they are truly devout, they should not publicly embrace beliefs directly contrary to fundamental church teachings.

Frankly, I've always thought the topic was an interesting enough make a front page post on -- links to reputable claims and counter-claims of overtly racist doctrine of a major world religion like LDS, and how the church has responded to these claims over the years, could be of wide interest for students of history. Honestly, however, I am similar in spiritual belief to many others here and could not legitimately state such a post made by me was not influenced by axe-grinding against organized religion.

Still, it is a historically significant, including the obligatory disputed neutrality Wikipedia entry on the topic. Perhaps someone who has a cleaner record and higher profile of tolerance might take the topic up some day, and avoid the inherent possibilities of a smear campaign (real or claimed).
posted by mdevore at 5:30 PM on November 5, 2006

Ummmmmmm.... OK.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:36 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

is it really so wrong that I expend a little effort trying to get her to see the light, so to speak?

Not at all; you're doing the Lord's work, my man. But it ain't gonna happen.

You were spos'ta ask "What's a mook?"...

Frankly, I've always thought the topic was an interesting enough make a front page post on

Please don't. We've done Race & Mormonism, and it wasn't pretty. Note to everyone: if you have a neato-keeno idea for a front page post on some Important Topic, odds are very good someone's had it before you. Check once, check twice, use every search engine, maybe ask crunchland just to be sure. (Not that I have the faintest idea why you brought it up here.)
posted by languagehat at 5:50 PM on November 5, 2006

We can reach 400, I know it!
posted by languagehat at 5:50 PM on November 5, 2006

You were spos'ta ask "What's a mook?"...

I live in Queens, I know from mooks, trust me...
posted by jonmc at 5:51 PM on November 5, 2006

Well, if a bit of connecting the dots is necessary...railing against a devout follower of a religion, particularly this church, for their beliefs or assuming you might "change their mind" is almost certainly an exercise in futility and waste of typing. Either you almost miraculously convince them to leave the church (and that is pretty much leaving all their immediate and extended family and friends in such cases), or else they won't listen to your arguments.

But I also thought the part about black people juxtaposed with the Mormon church was just a little too rich to not mention the church's recent past in that regard. Yes, I am occasionally more nasty than I should be.
posted by mdevore at 5:53 PM on November 5, 2006

It's a Mean Streets quote, ya mook. Speaking of which, this seems relevant:

It's all bullshit except the pain. The pain of hell. The burn from a lighted match increased a million times. Infinite. Now, ya don't fuck around with the infinite. There's no way you do that. The pain in hell has two sides. The kind you can touch with your hand; the kind you can feel in your heart... your soul, the spiritual side. And ya know... the worst of the two is the spiritual.

And what the hell, I'll toss this one in too:

You know what the Queen said? If I had balls, I'd be King.
posted by languagehat at 5:53 PM on November 5, 2006

aw, hell, I'm stunned I missed that, but if it makes your night any better over at Metachat, I've uploaded some Zappa mp3s. God I miss that crazy motherfucker. I can only imagine what mincemeat he'd make of Bush & Co.
posted by jonmc at 5:58 PM on November 5, 2006

Fuck George W. Bush. Oh, and that Zell Miller guy, too.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:08 PM on November 5, 2006

Frank Zappa's corpse for president!

better than what we've got now, right?
posted by jonmc at 6:21 PM on November 5, 2006

Well, if a bit of connecting the dots is necessary...railing against a devout follower of a religion, particularly this church, for their beliefs or assuming you might "change their mind" is almost certainly an exercise in futility and waste of typing.

Oh, come on! Don't ruin the FUN for EVERYONE! TRENCH WARFARE REALLY WORKS!!!

IF WE JUST GO ANOTHER TEN THOUSAND COMMENTS SOMEONE WILL BE CONVERTED!
posted by dw at 6:22 PM on November 5, 2006

One of my favorite things about MetaTalk is the clashes between languagehat and EB. I always imagine soused Scottish intellectuals getting hammered at a pub, getting into a heated argument over the finer points of Hume, resorting to fisticuffs, then hugging it out and heading back into the bar for a final wee dram of whiskey.
posted by Falconetti at 6:24 PM on November 5, 2006

::scales fall off of eyes::
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:25 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

mdevore; I think the NCAA threat to not allow BYU to play other schools is what really ended LDS priesthood policy for blacks.
posted by hortense at 6:27 PM on November 5, 2006

Bottom line for me is this, and I apologize for the quasi-Godwinian nature of it:

If the bloodsoaked twentieth taught us anything at all, it is that executioners can be and indeed often are perfectly mildmannered and inoffensive people in other contexts. Hannah Arendt spent a few hundred pages of Eichmann In Jerusalem demonstrating this, and this is merely the best-known and most painstakingly documented example.

So I'm having a hard time resisting my desire to lay a charge of aggravated moral idiocy at the feet of anyone - and jonmc, I'm lookin' straight at you - who defends k*****a's actions here because she's "sincerely concerned for our souls" and "a nice person," and because you think you can "reach her."

And I'm wanting to lodge the same charge at those - surprisingly, here it's primarily languagehat - who seek rather disingenuously to deny the connection between such attitudes and homophobic murder.

"Tolerance," in this context, is a red herring. There's a line that runs from Julius Streicher straight through to Sobibor and Treblinka - if there was any lesson at all to be gleaned from all the abyssal horror, wasn't it this one? - and I surely hope we wouldn't be talking about "tolerating" him, let alone imputing good will to him.

I say "I hope," but I must admit that some of the comments above make that hope look a little pallid. There's a lot of parsing and posturing going on, in the face of something that looks an awful lot like capital-E vil to me. One or two of you, indeed, are just about swimming in self-satisfied sophistry, and I devoutly wish you will never have to answer for it.
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:46 PM on November 5, 2006

So I'm having a hard time resisting my desire to lay a charge of aggravated moral idiocy at the feet of anyone - and jonmc, I'm lookin' straight at you -

I'll live. and for the last goddam time, I'm not defending her (did you actually read this comment, but don't let that get in the way of you feeling righteous. I don't enjoy tussling with people I've enjoyed drinking with, but I have to ask this question: what's more important to you: condemning someone who holds a false belief (thus making yourself feel better) or actually trying to affect change by trying to change that belief?

If you're soing to accuse me of 'idiocy' then I counter with an accusation of sanctimoniousness.
posted by jonmc at 7:01 PM on November 5, 2006

One or two of you, indeed, are just about swimming in self-satisfied sophistry, and I devoutly wish you will never have to answer for it.

are you volunteering yourself as judge, jury and executioner?
posted by jonmc at 7:04 PM on November 5, 2006

Dude, you think it makes me swell with satisfaction to say any of that? You think I'm sitting here all delighted with myself? Naw, no, no way. You know why?

Because there's at least two human tragedies playing out here, in slow motion. How could I take joy in that? How could I pat myself on the back and excuse myself? I'm as complicit as anyone. I'm just not gonna fool myself that "engaging" evil is going to do anything but prolong its dominion.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:07 PM on November 5, 2006

are you volunteering yourself as judge, jury and executioner?

I'm suggesting that history offers plenty of support for the idea that we might want to take demagogues at their word.

And don't talk to me about "hate the sin, not the sinner." There's still that good ol' hate in there. How many times do we need to learn that hate kills?
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:11 PM on November 5, 2006

adam, for me to simply flat-out consign konolia, (or other people I've known who've shown evidence of repugnant beliefs but who have otherwise show evidence of decency and even kindness and brotherly love and courage) to the slag heap would be to abandon one of my fundamental beliefs: that people can change for the better. We differ on this, that's fine, but if peoiple like me don't at least try to reach out to the konolia's of the world who will?

Think of it this way: if some comapssionate decent soul hand gotten to discontented war veteran Tim McVeigh before the militia types, would things have been different? Maybe, maybe not? But I see no reason to stop trying.
posted by jonmc at 7:14 PM on November 5, 2006

I'm suggesting that history offers plenty of support for the idea that we might want to take demagogues at their word.

I'm suggesting that maybe she's a dupe of demogogues rather than a demagogue herself.
posted by jonmc at 7:15 PM on November 5, 2006

ericb: Mrs. King was a roommate of my mother at Antioch College (Yellow Springs, OH). Edythe Scott ("Corey's" sister) -- also at Antioch -- was a good friend of my mother.

Interesting -- my mother was dorm-mates with Coretta Scott King at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. She told me, "All the girls thought, oh, how boring, she's marrying a preacher."

Re LDS -- I know a small group of Mormons (current and former) in the Castro. There is a *huge* underground subculture of gay and lesbian Mormons including in Salt Lake and other parts of Utah. Just saying.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 7:17 PM on November 5, 2006

railing against a devout follower of a religion, particularly this church, for their beliefs or assuming you might "change their mind" is almost certainly an exercise in futility and waste of typing

I do not care whether or not they change their mind. The only important thing is that they not be allowed to institute their religion through public law.

Drawing a line in the sand as to what is acceptable public opinion helps us prevent the religionists from taking over. Their desire to legislate morality can not be tolerated.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2006

There is a *huge* underground subculture of gay and lesbian Mormons including in Salt Lake and other parts of Utah. Just saying.

Are they lobbying for the right to marry multiple same-sex partners?

sorry, couldn't resist
posted by jonmc at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2006

Their desire to legislate morality can not be tolerated.

agreed. but does that mean efforts to change minds can't go on at the same time?
posted by jonmc at 7:20 PM on November 5, 2006

People don't change unless and until they want to - and many times, not even then. We know, in fact, that people often don't change when they both want to and are very, very heavily incentivized to do so.

So as admirable as they may be, I'm frankly skeptical as to the utility of your efforts. If you're sincerely interested in fighting bigotry, I'd humbly offer to you the suggestion that retail outreach is probably less useful than other forms of activism - especially given the persistence of the time-honored "some of my best friends are X" rationalization.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:22 PM on November 5, 2006

I'm suggesting that maybe she's a dupe of demogogues rather than a demagogue herself.

I'd say two things to that: that it's patronizing, and that it's a distinction without a difference. Either way, she's a replicator and an amplifier of demagoguery.
posted by adamgreenfield at 7:26 PM on November 5, 2006

"Retail outreach"? I've always thought that living my life openly, happily, and compassionately as an out gay man was the most effective thing I could do to change things. I affect people face to face, on a daily basis, gently, not "in your face".

To each his calling, I think. Not to belabor the civil rights era analogies, but some of us are Martin Luther King, some are Malcolm X, some are Rosa Parks, some are a little girl walking to school.
posted by Robert Angelo at 7:28 PM on November 5, 2006

I'd humbly offer to you the suggestion that retail outreach is probably less useful than other forms of activism

depends on the level of devotion to the prejudice you're dealing with, in my experience. like I said, konolia has heard me describe (unrepentantly) my own drug-taking, drunkenness, promiscuity and bisexual dalliances, and she still sent me well wishes when I went in for surgery and congratulations on my marraige. Why? Probably cause I've shown her the occasional kindness. So, maybe she'll listen eventually (and FWIW, I know several self-professed Christians who are active in Gay rights movements and there's people like Bruce Bawer who reconcile pro-Gay views with christian faith eloquently).

We know, in fact, that people often don't change when they both want to

I've said this before, there are two kinds of homophobes: those who hate gays for their own psychological reasons and use religion as a backup, and those who follow doctrine because their religion tells them so. Previous things she's said have led me to belive that if Jesus appeared in the sky on a flaming pie and told konolia "Gay people are OK!" she'd probably breathe a sigh of relief*. I can't get in touch with Jesus or any hevenly pastry chefs at the moment, so all I can do is tell what I know. And you've met me, you know I can be fuckin' relentless when I believe in something.

* the people who presch this kind of stuff to the konolias of the world, I hold out less hope for. go after them with everything you've got
posted by jonmc at 7:33 PM on November 5, 2006

Drawing a line in the sand as to what is acceptable public opinion helps us prevent the religionists from taking over. Their desire to legislate morality can not be tolerated.

The funny thing is, that's what they say about teh ghey.
posted by verb at 7:40 PM on November 5, 2006

The funny thing is, that's what they say about teh ghey.

yes, verb, but teh gheys are not asking fundy churches to perform gay marraiges, so that's where the analogy breaks down.
posted by jonmc at 7:41 PM on November 5, 2006

off to MeCha, thanks jon
posted by caddis at 8:11 PM on November 5, 2006

yes, verb, but teh gheys are not asking fundy churches to perform gay marraiges, so that's where the analogy breaks down.

This is absolutely true. But technically, they are trying to preserve the status quo when someone else is trying to change it. And in that sense, their argument about being 'under attack' is understandable. Not understandable in the 'Ah, yes, they're right!' sense, obviously. But understandable in the, 'Ahh, I see what you mean. You're still on crack, though' sense.

What I find interesting is that they perceive themselves as being under siege to the same degree that many gays do. There's certainly a lot of broken logic around that, mind you, I was just struck by the fact that the rallying cries are precisely the same, with appropriate nouns swapped out.
posted by verb at 8:36 PM on November 5, 2006

For the purposes of this thread, I think it's important to note that some people are driven to normative moral relativism because they believe that being a normative moral relativist allows them to be tolerant of the moral beliefs of other folks. However, this just isn't so. If you think that "being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs" is true, but you are a normative relativist-you think that your tolerance is not a universal human virtue but rather only moral relative to your own culture-suppose that you meet Bob, who is outside of your culture. Then your normative relativism obligates you to be tolerant of Bob's moral belief: "Being tolerant of other folks' moral beliefs is a bunch of hogwash." As a relativist, your feeling of tolerance is moral relative to your culture. And Bob's intolerance is moral relative to his culture. But then what's so great about tolerance of other folks' moral beliefs? You and Bob are both moral! There's no reason why you shouldn't think like Bob-you'd still be moral, just relative to his culture instead of yours. Your tolerance is just an accident of your culture, and your moral position wouldn't be any worse-you'd have to say-if you were intolerant like Bob...
My students pay me for that lecture; y'all get it for free.

Yeesh, I guess you charge by the hour. Anyway, the point was previous y addressed
posted by delmoi at 8:46 PM on November 5, 2006

1224 comments in the blue + 414 in the gray.
posted by delmoi at 8:57 PM on November 5, 2006

I have been active in racial reconciliation movements here locally and I resent the comparison to gay rights.

That is all.
posted by konolia at 6:19 PM EST on November 5 [+] [!]

Thank you for giving the rest of us the opportunity to have the last word, Konolia. We appreciate it; I know I do.

That said, I truly resent that the good things about love, spirituality, friendship, empathy, hope and humanity — all of which are things that make life worth living and celebrating — are continually being spat upon, corrupted, torn down, disappeared and annihilated by petty, banal, Eichmannesque bigots just like you, who blindly obey the hypocrites who hold positions of authority and run this country each and every day.

I don't agree with much of what DNAB has said, but on this score he's entirely correct: you have shown yourself to be a waste of time, a waste of a human being — not for believing in what you believe, not for repeating it without sparing a moment of any critical religious or moral self-reflection whatsoever, but for mouthing the same tired hatred without any care at all for the effect that your words have on how the rest of us are allowed to conduct our private lives, to live, breath and to exist.

In denying our right to exist on equal terms, you make no distinction between yourself and a soldier mindlessly following a Roman magistrate's order for crucifixions, or an El Salvadoran captain's direction to gun down priests and nuns, or the prison Kommandant's instructions to hang or gas the next batch of prisoners.

You would do all these things — you would have joyfully denied these victims their humanity — because a self-proclaimed Figure of Moral Authority has ordered you to.

Shame on you, Konolia. You are not inhuman to me, but through your mindless devotion to hatred as displayed in your comments so far, you truly wish you were a walking corpse.

May God offer you forgiveness for so carelessly throwing away His gift of humanity to you.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:18 PM on November 5, 2006

And to get way back up here:

If (as dw himself gratuitously threw out) it had been Richard Dawkins being a hypocrite -- if Dawkins had cancer and was found to be secretly parrying for a miracle cure -- would dw be asking that the thread be shut down because of all the Christians pointing fingers and calling Dawkins a hypocrite? I somehow doubt it.

Actually, I would. Because it would turn the sort of hateful, nasty, stupid and self-repeating spleenventacular we've already seen. And that's not Best Of The Web in my book. If you want that, check out LGF or DU or your AM radio dial.

My issue with Dawkins is that he's not adding anything to the atheist side except a big helping of hate and bile. He's Jerry Falwell without the Jesus. As if Falwell could pick Jesus out of a lineup. But anyway.

GK Chesterton used to debate Bertand Russell and GB Shaw on religion in public forums. For as heated as they could be, they would retire to the pub afterwards and have a jolly old time (though Shaw was a teetotaler). I just don't see Dawkins doing that. He seems too busy trying to convert people and puff up his own ego to actually lighten up. Just like Falwell. And Robertson. And Dobson. And Haggard....

And yes, maybe MeFi is like that. Maybe we all have beers and everything's cool. But the vitriol -- on both sides -- in this 1250-part thread really makes me question that.

And I doubt that you, ortho, would even give me the chance to buy you a beer. Your loss, I guess.
posted by dw at 9:36 PM on November 5, 2006

In the blue thread, Powerful Religious Baby wrote Places like Metafilter changed my mind. Metafilter changed my mind. We didn’t watch the news in my house, we watched Fox News. We didn’t listen to the radio, we listened to Rush Limbaugh. I had been entirely insulated from any type of rational discussion about the assumptions that lie at the foundation of such breathtaking semantic structures as the Catholic Church. Perhaps never before in history have people in my position had such wide and deep access to conversations good enough to change their minds. Thank you for that. And for that reason, I’ll be glad to see this conversation, or any others like it, go on as long as it has legs.

Give it a rest dw. There was vitriol, but out of over 1,000 comments, there were plenty like PRB's, there were lots of people, myself included, who did a lot of thinking about the big questions, and there was even some consensus to be found. To be even more blunt, pitching a metatalk fit like you did only exacerbated the potential for trainwrecks, flame-outs, clusterfucks, etc. Practice what you preach, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.
posted by bardic at 9:49 PM on November 5, 2006

It took you 11 minutes to masturbate?
posted by dw at 9:58 PM on November 5, 2006

No, I'm not finished yet.
posted by bardic at 9:59 PM on November 5, 2006

Practice what you preach, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Not only that but dw keeps posting to the thread he says is so god awful. No pun intended.
posted by tkchrist at 9:59 PM on November 5, 2006

Not only that but dw keeps posting to the thread he says is so god awful. No pun intended.

Trainwrecks are like that, you know. Can't look away.
posted by dw at 10:03 PM on November 5, 2006

Did you read PRB's comment dw? That's not the stuff of train-wrecks. Multiple posters saying that they're stronger in their resolve to love their fellow humans?

You can focus on some of the nastiness in there, fine, but you're being disengenuous. People had an argument about religion, and it touched on stuff that bothered you. Fine. Scroll to another thread.
posted by bardic at 10:09 PM on November 5, 2006

People had an argument about religion, and it touched on stuff that bothered you.

Bardic - it's deeper than that.

People like PeepingThomist and Konolia they VOTE. That should scare everybody. The thread was priceless. In that it educated me. As I had no idea people like Thomist still existed so close to me. People who believe masturbation and pre-marital sex are as evil as rape or murder? My god. And other people on Mefi enable these beliefs in some well intended but warped sense of polite discourse or common "religious cause" when they should be horror struck.

Nobody for a moment should be fooled into thinking that beliefs like theirs (in regards to sexuality) — so intense, regressive, and irrational — will not manifest in their politics. THEY even say so. Therefore at some point they will abuse beliefs and make them policy. Then impose this policy on the rest of us. That must be confronted in advance. If it hurts the feelings of some? So be it.

We ask our selves how guys like Bush get elected? Well look no further than Metafilter's own front door.
posted by tkchrist at 10:24 PM on November 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

'xactly as tkchrist says.

If these people are using their influence to pass religious laws, they need to be called out. We have been brought to the edge of destruction by people who misuse politics as a means to a religious ends. We can not afford to let them do it again.

That is why it is important to find out how these people actually put their beliefs into action: are they providing religious support while simultaneously supporting personal freedom? If so, they are on our side.

Time to speak up, konolia, p_t, others.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:31 PM on November 5, 2006

Did you read PRB's comment dw?

I have, now that I finally have the vomit cleaned off the bed and the daughter settled back down. Daycare passed gastrointestinal viruses, how we love thee.

And, you know? I was wrong. The comments got more civil and interesting as they went on. I still don't like the tone a number of people took, but yeah, if you'd listened to me, PRB and others would have missed out.

So, hey, I was wrong. I'm willing to admit that.
posted by dw at 12:40 AM on November 6, 2006

426 comments (145 new)

What did I miss? Can I get the Cliff's Notes?
posted by team lowkey at 1:09 AM on November 6, 2006

Sorry, team lowkey. You'll have to scan the thread. It's over the border into being worth it, though, in my opinion. It's got sincerity, heart, passion, even pathos, if you look. I'm impressed and moved and puzzled and saddened and perhaps enlightened.
posted by cgc373 at 1:25 AM on November 6, 2006

That thread is crazy long. Is there any way it can be forked?

Takes fricking forever to reload whenever I favorite a comment. That has to be brutal on the server, right?

Or is this the thread where we push it to the limit and figure out what thread length it takes to crash the server?

Enough questions.

Anyway, <3 it.
posted by beth at 3:48 AM on November 6, 2006

We ask our selves how guys like Bush get elected? Well look no further than Metafilter's own front door.

Bush got elected because a bunch of liberals enjoy ripping him a new asshole everytime he does something else stupid?
posted by bugbread at 4:46 AM on November 6, 2006

And, you know? I was wrong.

Wow, I had a whole bitter rant ready to unleash and you took the wind right out of my sails. Thanks for justifying my increasingly tattered faith in the utility of discourse.

And I'm wanting to lodge the same charge at those - surprisingly, here it's primarily languagehat - who seek rather disingenuously to deny the connection between such attitudes and homophobic murder.

Oh, give me a break, and try using your brains before you type next time. Here, let's try it this way: do you deny the link between anger and murder? No? Then you must support locking people up for being angry. I don't "deny the connection," I deny your right to convict people of thoughtcrime. And I'm not "disingenuous," I'm freedom-loving and consistent. Let's see if you can say the same.

And hey, thanks for giving me the chance to unleash the bitterness dw almost forced me to bottle up inside where it would corrode my liver and gallbladder!
posted by languagehat at 5:29 AM on November 6, 2006

Oh, and I'd like to thank all of you for fulfilling my dream. I went to bed with the forlorn suspicion that I'd wake up to find the thread had dribbled to a close, but it's still going strong and headin' for 500!
posted by languagehat at 5:30 AM on November 6, 2006

Here, let's try it this way: do you deny the link between anger and murder? No? Then you must support locking people up for being angry.

That's a ridiculous strawman, languagehat, and surely you know it. I'm a freedom-of-expression guy myself, but both in speech act theory and in American jurisprudence there exists the idea that certain kinds of expression have real-world consequences.

It's not "thoughtcrime" to hold people responsible for the actual or reasonably forseeable consequences of their utterance, and it's insulting to suggest so.
posted by adamgreenfield at 5:53 AM on November 6, 2006

So this Ted Haggard guy. Ya figure he's a top or a bottom?
posted by horsewithnoname at 5:59 AM on November 6, 2006

I find it ironic that a thread which began with a complaint about a runaway religious debate and an fpp on an unworthy topic has, itself, become a runaway religious debate and a discussion of the aformentioned unworthy topic.
posted by Clay201 at 6:37 AM on November 6, 2006

That's a ridiculous strawman

No it's not, you just don't like the implications of your own views. If you're a a freedom-of-expression guy, man up and take it seriously. Homophobes have the right to spew all the hateful speech they want, just as we have the right to say "I hope you fucking die and gay maggots fuck in your eyesockets." Nobody has the right to actually commit harmful actions, but speech is not action, and to claim it is is to support censorship.
posted by languagehat at 7:41 AM on November 6, 2006

speech also never takes place in a vacuum, and speech describes actions and affiliations as well--konolia doesn't need to tell us that she's a member of a church that is part of the groups agitating to deny me rights, or that they also give/gave money to that Nat'l Evangelical Assoc Haggard headed, or that often the topics of sermons are hateful and derogatory of me and mine and everyone else who doesn't live as they want to force me to do, etc. Everyone is allowed to spew whatever they want, but most of us have made it clear that it's the associated actions of these widely-disseminated and amplified beliefs that actually harms and injures--in all ways.

How many times do we have constantly mention that it's the fact that billions of dollars from konolia and those like her are being poured into politics specifically to enact hateful discriminatory laws and amendments and policy decisions?

There is that conservative stuff about "latte drinking, NYTimes reading, SF liberals" but in a way it's true--there are associated actions connected to political and religious identities and their identifying speech--some vastly more evident than others, especially when it comes to religion in politics and the public sphere.
posted by amberglow at 8:23 AM on November 6, 2006

languagehat: Should we support speech whose rhetorical goal is to undermine the tolerance which is the basis for our right to freedom of speech?
posted by eustacescrubb at 8:28 AM on November 6, 2006

Then impose this policy on the rest of us. That must be confronted in advance. If it hurts the feelings of some? So be it.

I think this comment by languagehat is worth revisting. The "Today MetaFilter, tomorrow the World!" thing is adorably naive and good for the occasional chortle, but in reality, is a hell of a lot less productive than people think it is.

It's good for the ego, though, I have no doubt about that - and hey, it's way easier than actually getting out there and doing something to make a difference, right?

We ask our selves how guys like Bush get elected? Well look no further than Metafilter's own front door.

"We traced the calls... they're coming from inside the house!!!"

Hilarious.
*Checks under bed for the Xtian boogeyman*
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:32 AM on November 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

Part of the whole "thoughtcrime" problem here is that people are treating speech and thought as the same thing.

• If you believe people should be punished for believing certain things, you believe in limited freedom of thought (i.e. "thoughtcrime").
• If you believe people should not be punished for any thoughts, but that they should for saying certain things, you believe in unlimited freedom of thought, but limited freedom of speech.
• If you believe people should not be punished for any thoughts, or for anything they say, but for certain actions, then you believe in unlimited freedom of thought, unlimited freedom of speech, but limited freedom of action.

Most people here (myself included) would be totally groovy with a person thinking anything in the world they wanted without getting punished, but most people here would probably say people shouldn't be allowed to call in bomb threats to schools or shout fire in a crowded theatre. So most people here believe in some limits to freedom of speech.

The argument isn't about whether or not speech should always be free or not, it's about where the line between allowed speech and disallowed speech is. However, people like to make their positions seem more absolute and moral by reclassifying the word "speech" to exclude the type of speech they dislike. "Threats aren't speech, they are action!" or bullshit like that. Doing so allows one to say "I support all freedom of speech, unlike you, you tyrant/hypocrite!"

So, lh and adamgreenfield, my guess (and it's just a guess) is that you're both "freedom of speech" guys in the sense of "generally supporting freedom of speech", and neither of you are "freedom of speech" guys in the sense of "absolutely supporting freedom of speech". Go ahead and disagree and debate about where the line between allowed and forbidden speech should be, but don't try to fool yourselves or others that what you support is "freedom of speech" and that the other party doesn't.

Basically, don't play the True Scotsman game.
posted by bugbread at 8:38 AM on November 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

No it's not, you just don't like the implications of your own views. If you're a a freedom-of-expression guy, man up and take it seriously.

Not that it matters, particularly, but you're talking to a guy who's given more to the ACLU over the course of his life than you probably earned last year. And I sure don't need you lecturing me about the implications of your own views.

Nowhere - nowhere - do I or have I ever said, suggested or insinuated that konolia's speech, or anyone else's, should be supressed. She has the right to speak...and I have the right and the duty to hold her morally accountable for her speech, using all the tools at my disposal, up to and including ostracism.

So maybe you're the one who needs to "man up" (and what a revealingly ugly term that is) and accept that you've chosen to defend on abstract terms someone whose conduct has concrete and unpleasant repercussions for not a few people that I love and cherish.

Knowing nothing meaningful about you personally, I hesitate to suggest that knolia's conduct doesn't seem to matter to you because homophobia is just as much, if not more of, an abstraction to you as freedom of expression. But you're sure doing a great job of making it seem that way.
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:45 AM on November 6, 2006

It is disgusting how easily people can be persuaded that free speech means only speech they like. It is cliche, but true, that the cure for bad speech is more speech, the Holmesian marketplace of ideas. In very rare cases, speech blurs into action, such as incitement to riot, but the illegal action has to be imminent and unavoidable unless speech is curbed. That si just legalism, but I think it makes sense. This is not even remotely close to one of those occasions.
posted by Falconetti at 8:51 AM on November 6, 2006

languagehat: Should we support speech whose rhetorical goal is to undermine the tolerance which is the basis for our right to freedom of speech?

Yes (assuming by "support" you mean "tolerate").

my guess (and it's just a guess) is that [...] neither of you are "freedom of speech" guys in the sense of "absolutely supporting freedom of speech"

Nope, I absolutely support freedom of speech. That doesn't mean you're not going to suffer consequences for your speech (if you call somebody a bad name, you may get punched), but no speech should be legally punished.

adamgreenfield: Sorry to have offended you, and I'm glad you give so much to the ACLU (though "how much I made last year" isn't a terribly impressive yardstick, since it was less than $15,000), but I have to continue to disagree with you.

It's not "thoughtcrime" to hold people responsible for the actual or reasonably forseeable consequences of their utterance, and it's insulting to suggest so.

Yes, it is. If you allow anyone in authority to define "reasonably forseeable consequences," you're allowing them to imprison anyone they don't like.

And if we're going to drag personal factors into this, I have a gay brother and gay friends, and gay rights mean a great deal to me. But my brother would laugh at konolia's pathetic nonsense; he has better things to do with his time and energy than get exercised about religious nuts.
posted by languagehat at 8:55 AM on November 6, 2006

On non-preview: thanks, Falconetti.
posted by languagehat at 8:56 AM on November 6, 2006

bugbread, I'm not playing any game at all. I neither need to establish my bona fides as a defender of the right to expression, nor wish to stake out some kind of ultra position.

I'm not even sure who invoked the red herring of freedom of expression in this context. It's simply not germane. My point remains what it has always been: if someone expresses views, repeatedly and knowingly, that are utterly inimical to the very existence of people I care about, I'm not going to take it lying down.

If that person is capable of rational argument, I'm going to attempt to refute their expressed point of view. If not, I have other means at my disposal. Either way, short of physical violence, I want homophobes to feel the pain and suffering that they cause, as viscerally and as elementally as possible.
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:57 AM on November 6, 2006

Not that it matters, particularly, but you're talking to a guy who's given more to the ACLU over the course of his life than you probably earned last year.

*Wrings out my panties*

Gosh, these things are soaked!!!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:57 AM on November 6, 2006

And FWIW, I apologize for my tacky comment about the ACLU. I really don't like being lectured.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:00 AM on November 6, 2006

*pulls Alvy out of toilet bowl*

Sorry, I left the seat up again.
posted by jonmc at 9:01 AM on November 6, 2006

adamgreenfield : "bugbread, I'm not playing any game at all."

I know. I wasn't telling you to stop. It just seemed like you were both on a collision course with "What I support is True freedom of speech! What you support isn't!", so I was just advising y'all to avoid it.

adamgreenfield : "I'm not even sure who invoked the red herring of freedom of expression in this context."

From what I can tell, it developed organically in the discussion between you and lh. It wasn't either one of you specifically, but each comment built on the last.
posted by bugbread at 9:05 AM on November 6, 2006

I apologize for my tacky comment about the ACLU. I really don't like being lectured.

And I apologize for my tacky "man up" comment and for lecturing you. We obviously have very similar views and both "want homophobes to feel the pain and suffering that they cause"; I guess I have a chip on my shoulder about freedom of expression because so many people (especially around here) seem to have a hard time accepting it.
posted by languagehat at 9:07 AM on November 6, 2006

Agreed. Hatchet buried.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:09 AM on November 6, 2006

Now that that's settled, onto weightier matters: Pizza: Chicago or New York style. I say New York.
posted by jonmc at 9:12 AM on November 6, 2006

Betty, Beatles, skinny Elvis.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:16 AM on November 6, 2006

Veronica, Stones, '68 Comeback.
posted by jonmc at 9:17 AM on November 6, 2006

Katy Keene, Herman's Hermits, Kissin' Cousins.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:20 AM on November 6, 2006

Veronica, Stones, '68 Comeback.
Hmm, wasn't aware Comeback Special was an option. I'm so self-defeatingly binary sometimes.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:23 AM on November 6, 2006

It's OK. We carry on.

Cream & Sugar. Tony Bennett. Wad it up. Bushy.
posted by jonmc at 9:27 AM on November 6, 2006

I find myself distressingly uncertain about the true extent of any of the commenters' true ferver in fighting for gay rights. At this point, I think that killing, beheading, and displaying the head of a homophobe on one's flickr page might be the only way I can feel sure that someone is truly committed to gay rights. Anyone who has disagreed with me and who cannot display that intensity is obviously a poseur who thinks all this is little more than amusing theorizing.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:29 AM on November 6, 2006

jonmc : "Pizza: Chicago or New York style. I say New York."

We're never going to agree on that. Let's just go bowling instead.
posted by bugbread at 9:31 AM on November 6, 2006

Ya figure he's a top or a bottom?

With all that guilt and shame? Do you even have to ask? He's a bad little boy in need of a spanking if ever there was one.
posted by mediareport at 9:32 AM on November 6, 2006

I would deplore the blatant attempt to turn this thread back into a vicious flame war, but that may be the only way we're going to reach 500.
posted by languagehat at 9:32 AM on November 6, 2006

Oh, dude. Black. Tom Jones. Recycle. Shaved.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:33 AM on November 6, 2006

Um, that was in response to EB, but the thread seems to be moving right along, so my concern may be misplaced.

Oh, and New Haven pizza, suckaz.
posted by languagehat at 9:33 AM on November 6, 2006

"White Light/White Heat." Citroën DS. Emma Peel!
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:35 AM on November 6, 2006

I really thought the freedom of expression stuff would snowball into a whole new monstrous argument, which is why I contributed. Whatta shame.
posted by Falconetti at 9:42 AM on November 6, 2006

"The Next Big Thing." '68 GTO. Ann Margret.
posted by jonmc at 9:43 AM on November 6, 2006

Also:

over easy. medium rare. whiz, wid' out, sweet peppers. Dick York.
posted by jonmc at 9:45 AM on November 6, 2006

This thread is still active? Sheesh.

Pizza?

Yes.
posted by konolia at 9:47 AM on November 6, 2006

We could totally triple the comment count in less than an hour if Matt temporarily unbanned dhoyt and Alex Reynolds.
posted by bugbread at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2006

Scrambled, black & blue, hot and sweet peppers, Michel Foucault.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:48 AM on November 6, 2006

you're from North Carolina. What do you know from pizza? Barbecue, that's a whole other story...
posted by jonmc at 9:49 AM on November 6, 2006

Tabasco.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:50 AM on November 6, 2006

Mets, bourbon, Letterman, Mozilla, Jeff Beck, Matchbox.
posted by jonmc at 9:51 AM on November 6, 2006

Ironman, G&Ts, Venture Brothers, Safari, Ron Asheton, Matchbox.

Akzidenz Grotesk.
posted by adamgreenfield at 9:55 AM on November 6, 2006

A-HA! (Jeff Beck is my favorite Yardbirds guitarist, not my favorite guitarist!)

onwards: N/W to the 1, Camel Lights, 18 and she had a boyfriend man what a mess, Dulce De Leche Oreos, Giants.
posted by jonmc at 9:59 AM on November 6, 2006

Domino's Brooklyn style, Milli Vanilli, Hummer 3, Ted Haggard,
Mornington Crescent.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 10:03 AM on November 6, 2006

6 to the L. Stanford Chemistry department sugarcubes. 17 and she was an "older woman." Hint O' Fresh Lime Doritos. N/A.

Kona. American Tabloid. Seoul.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:09 AM on November 6, 2006

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, even.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:12 AM on November 6, 2006

Irving Place House Blend. American Tabloid. Qui Nhon City. Being There.

Boxers. Phish Food. Brooklyn Lager. White Clam.
posted by jonmc at 10:24 AM on November 6, 2006

Columbian.

(coffee, not weed.)

Jonmc, you do know there is such a thing as barbecue pizza? Of course it's an abomination.

East Carolina barbecue. On a bun with coleslaw and a shake or two of Texas Pete.
posted by konolia at 10:24 AM on November 6, 2006

yep, I've seen it. It's a disgrace to half my heritage.

Pulled pork, vinegary sauce. I detest coleslaw.
posted by jonmc at 10:29 AM on November 6, 2006

Boxer briefs. Rocky Road. Westvleteren Abt 12. Black olives and fresh garlic.

Jil Sander. Pantone 021C, with occasional Hemi Orange. Lemmy.
posted by adamgreenfield at 10:36 AM on November 6, 2006

Levi Strauss. Basic black. Handsome Dick Manitoba.

abbywinters.com. Clerks. Rachel Ray. Barney Gumble. Redd Foxx.
posted by jonmc at 10:43 AM on November 6, 2006

Here. Here. Here. Here.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:07 AM on November 6, 2006

Not going there. : . ) Apocalypse Now. Anthony Bourdain. CBG. Lenny Bruce.

"Anal Bum Covers." Fish tikka. Moe. Lufthansa.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:10 AM on November 6, 2006

Red sauce. Agnostic as to beef vs. pork, but always pulled, not chopped. Yellow sauce is an abomination.

Heath Bar Crunch. Reckoning. Alaskan Amber. Rachel Weisz. The 2001 Mariners. Pizza Margherita. Dorking Deepdene. Cadillac Eldorado. Dorothy Day. The Vermont quarter.
posted by dw at 11:11 AM on November 6, 2006

Whatever works. Crabmeat Vindaloo. Larry. Jet Blue.

Peter Bagge. Benjamin Anastas. Scott Muni.
posted by jonmc at 11:14 AM on November 6, 2006

Heath Bar Crunch. Rachel Weisz. Dorothy Day.
Noted approvingly.

Cadillac Eldorado.
Less so.

MrMoonPie: 49th & Telegraph. 7th & B. 43rd & Spruce. Ebisu 2-chome.
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:17 AM on November 6, 2006

Adrian Tomine. Steve Erickson. Edward R. Murrow.

M. Bibendum, the Michelin Man. Marin County Civic Center. Do I even have to say "Maggie Cheung" anymore?
posted by adamgreenfield at 11:20 AM on November 6, 2006

mrMoonPie: I was at the Strand yesterday, saw this and thought of you.
posted by jonmc at 11:21 AM on November 6, 2006

Cap'n Crunch. CBGB. Do I even have to say Alyson Hannigan anymore?

Frank Zappa. Uncommon Goods. Ebbets Field. Dispatches.
posted by jonmc at 11:23 AM on November 6, 2006

also: hahahahaha!
posted by jonmc at 11:25 AM on November 6, 2006

like the MoonPie itself, it's small enough to hold in your hand and pretty enough to display.

So, so true.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:34 AM on November 6, 2006

Cadillac Eldorado.
Less so.

I learned to drive on a 1977 Eldorado Biarritz specially built for a "dignitary" -- bulletproof doors, leather seats, the works. Huge, heavy, inefficient, went through gas like a supermodel through coke. Almost impossible to drive when you're 15. And a beautiful car.

The chicken fried steak at Nelson's Buffeteria. The Decemberists. Andy Richter Controls The Universe.
posted by dw at 11:43 AM on November 6, 2006

I think this comment by languagehat is worth revisting. The "Today MetaFilter, tomorrow the World!" thing is adorably naive and good for the occasional chortle, but in reality, is a hell of a lot less productive than people think it is.

I was participating in these same arguments back in 1987, when I first started using the networks.

In the past two decades, I've seen my country make huge strides toward greater equality and greater tolerance.

And as rare as it is, I have seen several people change fundamental aspects of their world view after having thoroughly hashed out an issue; myself included.

I'm not going to claim network discussions have caused the change, but I am certain they have contributed to change.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:42 PM on November 6, 2006

They have, and often it doesn't hit people until later, during some other conversation or event or thing they see or hear.

In the past two decades, I've seen my country make huge strides toward greater equality and greater tolerance.
And we've seen our country make huge strides backward, which is the real crime.
posted by amberglow at 2:07 PM on November 6, 2006

Now that that's settled, onto weightier matters: Pizza: Chicago or New York style. I say New York.

New York! Chicago deep dish is an abomination. It's not a pizza, it's a pie.

But, New Haven beats all! Sally's Apizza and Frank Pepe's on Wooster Street define the best thin crust pizza (the way it should be)!
posted by ericb at 3:45 PM on November 6, 2006

*high-fives ericb*

Two more comments, people! We can do it!
posted by languagehat at 3:46 PM on November 6, 2006

over easy. medium rare. whiz, wid' out, sweet peppers. Dick York.

Michael York, Thom Yorke, Yorkshire, egg cream, fresh mozarella and tomato at the Amsterdam cafe, fourteen and why didn't he call afterwards, thunderstorms, cumin, basil, lemongrass.
posted by jokeefe at 4:05 PM on November 6, 2006

Is it over yet?
posted by econous at 4:06 PM on November 6, 2006

*sigh*

black tea, milky coffee, Kit Kat bars, the view from my kitchen window, Walter Benjamin, A.S. Byatt, the first time you smell smoke in the air in autumn, rain.
posted by jokeefe at 4:07 PM on November 6, 2006

There appears to be a distinct flavour of *crickets*, yes.

*looks around* We all done? Though I think things are still roaring along in the blue.
posted by jokeefe at 4:09 PM on November 6, 2006

Do I win anything for nabbing the 500th comment?
posted by econous at 4:16 PM on November 6, 2006

an extra-dry gin martini, Combustible Edison, kittens and their sharp little claws, very long scarves, a late night walk through foggy streets, cheesecake, those little cards with numbers on them you get at overpriced parking lots downtown.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:18 PM on November 6, 2006

Do I win anything for nabbing the 500th comment?

Yes.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 4:18 PM on November 6, 2006

Chicago but when in Seattle, Pagliacci's, chai, the Sonics (not the basketball team), the September 1995 Seattle Mariners, peanut sauce.
posted by litlnemo at 4:30 PM on November 6, 2006

Ah, it was a good thread, my friends (both this one and the corresponding one in the blue). My favorite moment of all would have to have been "Game, set, match." If you don't bust a gut imagining someone using that phrase during a conversation (make the voice extra smarmy/arrogant).... I'm not sure you're even alive. Good times, all! See you next blockbuster religion thread!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:37 PM on November 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

What does everyone think about fat people? I say they are just plain lazy.
posted by Falconetti at 5:07 PM on November 6, 2006

thunderstorms. having my hair played with. cats. dark green. full moons. redheads. candlelight. jasmine. vanilla. freckles. watercolors. billiards. sushi. cobblestones. a good sweat and then a shower, and then another good sweat. blown glass. sunsets. mockingbirds. ballet. sailing. zen. a freshly made bed. kiwifruit. miso soup. sleeping spoon-style naked. ben-and-jerrys' new york super fudge chunk ice cream. haiku. autumn. confident women. silver. japanese gardens. otters. honesty. sensuality. incense. fireplaces. smell of freshly mown grass. crickets. fireflies. butterflies. frank lloyd wright. towels warm and fluffy from the dryer. a well-cut three button suit. afternoon naps. crushed velvet. leather. violets. gentle kisses. sloppy kisses. kissing. speeding. tiramisu. pagan holidays. waking up next to someone you care about. summer rain. fall rain. rain. scotch bonnets. garlic and ginger. red-tailed hawks. crows. stained-glass windows. stars on a clear night in the mountains. a good fountain pen. postcards from old friends. masala. seeing your breath in the winter. the smell of wood burning. military surplus. panty lines. dostoyevsky. low-cut backs on dresses. crashing surf. lapping surf. surf. punctuality. celtic knotwork. violins. being clean. people who accept me for who I am. neatly pressed pants. well-broken-in blue jeans. t'ai chi. freeform jazz. waterfalls. pico de gallo. soft lips. dante's inferno. philosophy. being naked and un-selfconscious. knowing that people care about me. openmindedness. flirting. mechanical things. cedar. laughing. hugs. four-post beds. unconditional love. plaid skirts. calligraphy. being whispered to. warm fresh bread. long-island diners.
posted by exlotuseater at 5:35 PM on November 6, 2006

thunderstorms. having my hair played with. cats. dark green. full moons. redheads. candlelight. jasmine. vanilla. freckles. watercolors. billiards. sushi. cobblestones. a good sweat and then a shower, and then another good sweat. blown glass. sunsets. mockingbirds. ballet. sailing. zen. a freshly made bed. kiwifruit. miso soup. sleeping spoon-style naked. ben-and-jerrys' new york super fudge chunk ice cream. haiku. autumn. confident women. silver. japanese gardens. otters. honesty. sensuality. incense. fireplaces. smell of freshly mown grass. crickets. fireflies. butterflies. frank lloyd wright. towels warm and fluffy from the dryer. a well-cut three button suit. afternoon naps. crushed velvet. leather. violets. gentle kisses. sloppy kisses. kissing. speeding. tiramisu. pagan holidays. waking up next to someone you care about. summer rain. fall rain. rain. scotch bonnets. garlic and ginger. red-tailed hawks. crows. stained-glass windows. stars on a clear night in the mountains. a good fountain pen. postcards from old friends. masala. seeing your breath in the winter. the smell of wood burning. military surplus. panty lines. dostoyevsky. low-cut backs on dresses. crashing surf. lapping surf. surf. punctuality. celtic knotwork. violins. being clean. people who accept me for who I am. neatly pressed pants. well-broken-in blue jeans. t'ai chi. freeform jazz. waterfalls. pico de gallo. soft lips. dante's inferno. philosophy. being naked and un-selfconscious. knowing that people care about me. openmindedness. flirting. mechanical things. cedar. laughing. hugs. four-post beds. unconditional love. plaid skirts. calligraphy. being whispered to. warm fresh bread. long-island diners.

So, what do you think about the mid-term elections? ;)
posted by ericb at 5:38 PM on November 6, 2006

ThePinkSuperhero: I'm going to have to call an Incorrect Allusion penalty on bardic, there. (Which was why I found the "Game, set, match" bit amusing.)
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 5:39 PM on November 6, 2006

TPS, I've already got a mefi stalker but I'll let you know if the position opens up. Tia!

As for my theology oops, sorry. It was Noah's sons who looked on his nakedness. And it was Lot who had sex with his daughters -- had to google that one as well. Not like I was trying to make a larger point there or anything.
posted by bardic at 5:50 PM on November 6, 2006

the word "phlegm", my grandmother's clam chowder, strawberries, other people's grocery lists, cellos, elaborate silverware, Dostoyevsky, rolling cigarettes, my cat's voice, hats, hot chocolate, Katamari Damacy, gold leaf, wind-up toys, sidewalk chalk, evenly toasted english muffins (with butter and orange marmalade), symbols on street signs, mauve, homemade cards, candles -- well, my father just called. First time we've spoken in around five years. I think that about does it for me.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 6:02 PM on November 6, 2006

Not like I was trying to make a larger point there or anything.

No offence intended, man. The point came across fine.
posted by The Great Big Mulp at 6:09 PM on November 6, 2006

Are all American gay men histrionic? It's like even though they may be perfectly correct, some less tolerant folk might find all the hissyfiting irritating. I ask because am in London about three blocks from Soho, (gay central) and all the gay blokes seem to be much calmer. Do you suppose it's a function of the Church of England lot drinking so much tea? I mean it's hard to be quite so hurtful after a nice cup of tea, don't you think? I shall have the Archbishop have a quite word with his Evangical counterparts in the US over a nice cup tea. Mmm.. Quite fancy a nice right about now.
posted by econous at 6:13 PM on November 6, 2006

Aren't all British men gay?
posted by bardic at 6:16 PM on November 6, 2006

That's OK, bardic; I only stalk Mefites whose pics I've seen. Mwa ha ha ha ha! MWA HA HA HA HA!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:57 PM on November 6, 2006 [1 favorite]

thunderstorms. having my hair played with. cats. dark green. full moons. redheads. candlelight. jasmine. vanilla. freckles. watercolors. billiards. sushi. cobblestones. a good sweat and then a shower, and then another good sweat. blown glass. sunsets. mockingbirds. ballet. sailing. zen. a freshly made bed. kiwifruit. miso soup. sleeping spoon-style naked. ben-and-jerrys' new york super fudge chunk ice cream. haiku. autumn. confident women. silver. japanese gardens. otters. honesty. sensuality. incense. fireplaces. smell of freshly mown grass. crickets. fireflies. butterflies. frank lloyd wright. towels warm and fluffy from the dryer. a well-cut three button suit. afternoon naps. crushed velvet. leather. violets. gentle kisses. sloppy kisses. kissing. speeding. tiramisu. pagan holidays. waking up next to someone you care about. summer rain. fall rain. rain. scotch bonnets. garlic and ginger. red-tailed hawks. crows. stained-glass windows. stars on a clear night in the mountains. a good fountain pen. postcards from old friends. masala. seeing your breath in the winter. the smell of wood burning. military surplus. panty lines. dostoyevsky. low-cut backs on dresses. crashing surf. lapping surf. surf. punctuality. celtic knotwork. violins. being clean. people who accept me for who I am. neatly pressed pants. well-broken-in blue jeans. t'ai chi. freeform jazz. waterfalls. pico de gallo. soft lips. dante's inferno. philosophy. being naked and un-selfconscious. knowing that people care about me. openmindedness. flirting. mechanical things. cedar. laughing. hugs. four-post beds. unconditional love. plaid skirts. calligraphy. being whispered to. warm fresh bread. long-island diners.

hailstorms, rimjobs, dogs, olive drab, gathering thunderstorms, beer, beer, beer, bere\87900987654345r6789
posted by jonmc at 7:22 PM on November 6, 2006

You had me at "Mwa ha ha ha ha!"
posted by bardic at 7:25 PM on November 6, 2006

"I love poetry. And a glass of scotch. And my good friend Baxter here."
posted by bardic at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2006

Beacause I love you fuckers.

(trust me, it's great, you'll thank me for it, everybody SSSSIIIING ALLLOOOONG!!!)
posted by jonmc at 7:28 PM on November 6, 2006

and this one, too. simply because I've referred to it so often.

(you should all sing along to this as well)
posted by jonmc at 7:36 PM on November 6, 2006

Aren't all British men gay? Mother was complaining only yesterday about that exact thing. Wittering on & on about needing a stiff dick, before she heals over. If she'd just get rid of that damn stupid mustache her luck would improve. But she absolutely will not acknowledge its existence, and I won't be bringing it up again this Christmas. Oh no, once bitten, twice shy. A man's born with only two bollocks after all.
posted by econous at 8:25 PM on November 6, 2006

Did everyone catch DNAB in this week's Studio 60?
posted by Falconetti at 9:43 PM on November 6, 2006

SUCK IT, TREBEK!
posted by adamgreenfield at 6:30 AM on November 7, 2006

Sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows.
That's all I've got.
posted by Floydd at 7:36 AM on November 7, 2006

Incense and Peppermints. I mean, Pepperments.
posted by bardic at 2:40 PM on November 7, 2006

Falconetti writes "Did everyone catch DNAB in this week's Studio 60?"

...the fuck?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 6:18 PM on November 7, 2006

In Studio 60 there was a gay guy who was super pissed off at a homophobic woman.
posted by Falconetti at 9:30 PM on November 7, 2006

tkchrist attributes to me the belief that masturbation and pre-marital sex are as evil as rape or murder.

I do not believe that. So far as I know, no one believes it. Affirming that masturbation and pre-marital sex are seriously wrong does not prevent me, or anyone who thinks like me, from affirming that rape and murder are much, much worse. I do not see how you could get from anything I or anyone else has said the view you attribute to me.
posted by peeping_Thomist at 9:56 AM on November 8, 2006

Yeah, did you feel my bag of bones yet? They can do more.
posted by econous at 3:59 PM on November 8, 2006

I gave my love a chicken that had no bag of bones...
posted by Robert Angelo at 5:03 PM on November 8, 2006

For the 533rd comment in this thread, I'd like to note that today, despite being subject to the 30-day rule, as 1142 was not, back in the day, thread #56002 surpassed #1142 as the secondmost commented-upon thread in MeFi history.
posted by cgc373 at 10:28 PM on November 25, 2006

Popping back by to note that #56002 took the title from #9622 this afternoon. Counting that thread and this one—except this comment—there are 275,000 words between them.
posted by cgc373 at 4:30 PM on December 2, 2006

Let us leave the fact of your being unforgivably right, we are still left with fact of my having the last word. So ask yourself; will you be invited to participate again? Do you...? Do you see? Have you got it yet? Winning is not all there is to be a man my son.
posted by econous at 3:52 PM on December 3, 2006

Um, what?
posted by cgc373 at 3:55 PM on December 3, 2006

Also bardic you are not quonsar, so no need to be quite as nasty.
posted by econous at 3:56 PM on December 3, 2006