The main reason so many marriages fail is a lack of commitment to succeed, to compromise when necessary. Usually by both sides, with the caveat that one or the other has often developed on adulterous sex interest (even if not yet acted upon). Part of the purpose of dating and having a pre-marital relationship (excluding intercourse), is to test the boundaries of behavior compromise to insure that there are no break up issues. (Sleep with window open/ closed)

Being happily married requires commitment. And working on it. And maybe some practice of suffering together (the modern unwritten ideal of avoiding all psychic suffering leads to shallowness), comforting each other, and accepting the differences.

With society focussed on the materialistic and consumeristic, such lack of commitment is implicitly encouraged.

The totem pole certainly does matter; but it's also true that adoption decisions, like pregancy, are either yes or no. I don't doubt that the best gay couple would be better parents than the worst hetero parents accepted.

I'm also sure that the most skillful drunk driver is a better driver than the worst non-drunk driver.

But even the best gays have the obvious problem that they couldn't, biologically, have been the birth parents.

The pro-gay adoption supporters, not sure if that's all pro-gay marriage folks (haven't read otherwise), certainly seem to want to change society to be one where biology doesn't matter so much. As of today, biology does matter, a lot; and thus, today, there will certainly be strong external pressures on and around any child that is raised by gays.

Since legal custody of an adopted child rests with a government decision, and allowing a couple to adopt is a priviledge, it would be wrong/ bad for the child to allow gays to adopt the child while so many in society oppose it.

This is unlike the right of any fertile woman to conceive, no matter how poor a parent the woman might be.

You don't think it's fair or you don't like because it weakens your argument?
By using Hungtington's (The Clash of Civilizations) categories, France, Sweden and all of Western Europe and the US & Canada are part of a Christian/Western civ.
I oppose "civil union" much less than "marriage" -- why isn't that enough for gays?

The US, will welfare dependent irresponsibles and huge numbers of immigrants, does poorly on lots of statistics.

Sorry Jon, in my voluminous recent stuff I posted that I was an agnostic -- but very much not sure. Coming from a young RAH "radical agnostic" position, where I found same-sex behavior distateful but tolerable. Now I am more against gays.
Who can really tell if they have been hurt by "buddy sex"? If you're already damaged, it might well be no additional damage -- I don't know. My wife was a virgin on our wedding night; I wasn't. I'm happy for me, sad for her. Marrying a virgin is an excellent ideal, even if the majority who marry are not. How can anybody prove that the increase in divorce was, or was not, caused by a decrease in the numbers of weddings of adult virgins?

My juvinile RAH free sex ideal has changed.

All this talk about other societies accepting other forms of marriage -- but they are all inferior civilizations. Measured by health, by wealth, by technicnology, by human rights.
The Christian civilization of our European heritage, including its Spanish Inquisition, Orthodox schism, etc., is certainly not perfect. (Excessive taxes & gov't spending, for one thing, or is that two?) But it's better than the alternatives.

Man-woman union in a faithful marriage, this ideal which so often was not, and is not, achieved; but an ideal that most married folks would agree is their personal ideal; marriage gets my vote as one the key pillars of our civilization's success.

And marriage is certainly in perilous shape in society now -- I earlier claimed one of the (many small) reasons for opposing gay marriage was that it was more easily opposed. Stopping gay marriage will not save marriage or strengthen it much; legal acceptance of gay marriage will not hurt marriage as much as TV has, and the socially developed culture of consumeristic materialism.

Love Waits programs, Promise Keepers programs, they seem hopeful movements.

Here in Central Europe, we recently had huge floods. (Greenhouse gases affecting weather, prolly -- raise pollution taxes is a partial answer, but that's for somewhere else.) Maybe you saw some pictures of Germany or Prague being flooded? Maybe you saw people putting up sandbags to stop the river. In Prague, neither sandbags nor anything else was enough -- the floods came.
In Slovak Bratislava, the city side of the Danube, reinforced with sandbags, was saved.

I view my opposition to gay marriage as a sandbag; small, but real, and doable by me as individual. And whether it helps or not is not under my control, but whether I try to help, or not, is.

Oops, forgot to add that yes, if it can be shown that promiscuity does no damage, I would be less against. (I'll always be some against it because I feel damaged by it.) Perhaps there are statistics showing that those who had "buddy sex" before marriage (not necessarily with their spouse) have a lower divorce rate. Because I'd guess it's at least a little be worse, I'd look pretty careful.

Again I challenge any of the pro-gay folks -- what kind of "fact", even if unknowable, or known false, would make you change your mind? If you can't think of any, you're closed minded.

I also thank Luny, for at least liking the analogy. I notice none who criticize my drunk driving analogy addressed the point: most drunk driving hurts nobody. Do you accept drunk driving?

Fine, Ev; but how about just a brief one or two liner on a couple ideas of communism you like?

Meanwhile, Luny: "Isn't it better then to take the idea and add or take away as needed to change it into something acceptably close to the idea and yet much more reasonably implementable?"

First we should differentiate between physical law systems (like all tech), and human organization systems. So far as we know, once physical laws are known, they don't change -- though better measurement may indicate that the "knowledge", like Newtonian physics, is a simplification of a more complex relativistic physics.

"Ideas" about human organizations are fundamentally different, because human will can, and does, change behavior. Take slavery. From before history through around 1800, there had always been slavery. There was little reason to think there wouldn't always be slavery -- but human society changed and this terrible idea, accepted in the Bible among other places, has been almost eradicated. (Except for sex slaves, voluntary or criminally not.)

Besides ideas, there are �ideals� � noble standards that are goals to strive for. The America I�m proud of is based on both the Declaration (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness) and the Constitution (establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity). There are different ideas about what the Ideals mean, and even more different ideas/opinions on how best to organize society towards them.

And there is the Machiavelli issue: do the ends justify the means? Or, if you agree with the means, do you accept the ends?

It occurred to me that one of the big criticisms of capitalism is that of �income inequality�, a popular measure of which is the Gini coefficient; another one the Robin Hood Index. (BTW, Robin Hood stole from the rich tax collectors to return the collected goods back to the poor tax payers ). Another important index is the unemployment index.

Commie systems, where unemployment is illegal, do better than capitalistic ones on both of these measures. I think there are a lot of ways of reducing unemployment in virtually all �capitalistic� countries � by reducing gov�t red tape and requirements on business. Capitalism is also better on absolute poverty.

Here�s a mid article quote: �Unfortunately, Marx was correct on one point at least; in large part, people judge their welfare in relative terms. This is why political envy is such a powerful weapon for politicians. So, no matter how wealthy we become, manipulative people will continue to tap into this dark well of the human psychology. Of course, it is illogical, but emotions often override logic and rationality.�

http://www.arts.monash.edu.au/ausapec/duncan.PDF

And eliminating income taxes for minimum wage earners and all who make less, by allowing a $10 000 individual deduction, would be a step towards that. But arguing about alternative tweaks to an existing system is exactly what �realpolitik� is mostly about.

Luny: "(Though I also think that in such cases where you knowingly infect someone then you should be held accountable.)"
[from the homosexuality thread]

I don't believe you're serious about the "infectors" being held accountable. I haven't read any "pro-gay marriage" proposals about how to implement any accountability or penalties to the guilty gays who are BUFU-ing and infecting others. In fact I'm enraged by this consistent intellectual dishonesty: "oh yes, I'm against knowingly infecting others (but I'm even more against any sanctions...)"

This is yet another factor making me, personally, more anti-gay as well as anti-gay marriage than I would be if there was even the tiniest bit of agreement here, or in the US culture, for how to find and punish those who are guilty.
[new!]
Without support for a reasonable program of punishment sufficient to act as a detterent to protect the (half-?) innocent, at least currently uninfected, such protestations are really the hot air.

Your argument (in part): gays who actually guilty "should be held accountable", but no condemnation in any way for the gay lifestyle, and in fact support of gay marriage because that lifestyle should be treated as equal.

Part of my argument: there is no proposal to hold the guilty accountable in any reasonable way. Nor is it really desired (this is what gets me upset.) The pro-gay camp who claims this has no intention of allowing any punishment to any of the guilty, but say such BS words to separate, logically, the guilty from the responsible, innocent gays. Then, for responsible committed gays, the argument in favor of equality is much stronger. And any benefits received go also to the unpunishable guilty gays.

I guess there's still a bit of life in my anti-gay horse, yet. {Recall this is an exploration for me of my own feelings and reasons, more than a serious attempt to change anybody else's mind.)

Accountability is silly without identification. How about mandatory blood tests? For all in the military? For all receiving federal assistance money? For all federal & state gov't employees?

Allowing health insurance companies to require blood tests? (I think this is not allowed now?) Allow insurance companies to conduct random drug tests? Allow exlusion of coverage of those engaging in gay sex? drug users? prostitution?

I don't mind tax breaks for gay couples, even if only "monogamous registered partners". I basically like tax reductions for everybody. But I am deeply angered that responsible behaving folks are paying the health insurance costs of irresponsibly behaving folks. In the case of Christians who condemn all gay behavior, using gov't to force them, through insurance regulations, to pay some of the health costs for the most irresponsible gays is really wrong.

Again I thank you for making me think these thoughts and writing them. I'd really be interested in any pro-gay ideas of what reasonable accountability means.

TomD, I understand your view that the lack of "marriage" for gays encourages promiscuity. I really don't believe allowing gays to marry would change their behavior much. We'll prolly continue to disagree here, and it seems unlikely that any real numbers, or legal changes, will change either of our minds.

Although I can imagine that, if there is gay marriage, and the rates of gay divorce and "safe sex" (or not?) promiscuity increase, you might be willing to change your mind -- when it's too late, and even more difficult to change society back.

But I'm really here because of Luny: "(Though I also think that in such cases where you knowingly infect someone then you should be held accountable.)"

I don't believe you're serious about the "infectors" being held accountable. I haven't read any "pro-gay marriage" proposals about how to implement any accountability or penalties to the guilty gays who are BUFU-ing
and infecting others.

In fact I'm enraged by this consistent intellectual dishonesty: "oh yes, I'm against knowingly infecting others (but I'm even more against any sanctions...)" And I think this is yet another factor making me, personally, more anti-gay as well as anti-gay marriage than I would be if there was even the tiniest bit of agreement here, or in the US culture, for how to find and punish those who are guilty.

I'll try to make this my last post here on the 200+, 7pages homosexuality thread, so I'm going to copy this challenge part to your new thread.

I hope this isn't too impolite.
(edited a tiny bit, and to copy)

Actually, capitalism is based on rule of laws (not men); private property rights; and enforcing honest exchanges / contracts between consenting adults.

Which one does Ev disagree with? Private property? Hah! Children naturally learn immediately what is "theirs", what they have control over, and what is not. Who owns/controls which toy? Which car? Which house, factory, or other scarce resource? Even in "socialist" families of loving husband, wife, and children, who controls and makes decisions over the family resources is often a big issue.

Hey Ev, you ready to let your Mother in law tell your family what to do with your money? If not, why not?

Most poverty in the world occurs because property rights and contracts are not fairly enforced; in particular, between rich local elites and local peasants. This is a failure of government -- whose rightful job is to fairly define & enforce property rights and honest contracts.

Every communist HAS to believe: the end justifies the means. The "good socialist" end justifies the inevitable oppression against those who disagree.

The good means I specified above allow some greedy & selfish folk to lie/ cheat others, but this is far less harm than other alternatives.

On the other hand, "intellectual property" is BS -- copying increases the wealth of the world without "hurting" the one copied from. It does reduce, not eliminate, the market value based on scarcity of whatever is copied.

I didn�t want to be too long, so I separated my links from my own words, here.
graywolfe (great name), Can good argument change minds? I offer myself as one who HAS changed his mind. For me, it started with Lincoln. I know most historians consider him one of the greatest (at least) presidents. But he hugely increased Fed power, had a draft, and started a big war that killed masses of Americans. Yes, he did end slavery. But Brazil was able to end slavery by 1890 without a war� Ending slavery was great. Killing so many was terrible. Authorities told me it was worth it, but one of my Libertarian mottoes is �Question Authority�. So I asked myself, how many had to die, before I thought it was too many? My (arbitrary) number was � of 1%. The number was about 2%. That�s too many. Lincoln was lousy. I changed my mind.

I certainly supported full gay rights, and even gay marriage benefits (while basically opposing all taxes, anyway), up through my �86 & �88 campaigns (age 32). But the gay lifestyle DOES go with AIDS. Everybody who wants to argue in favor of gay rights & RAH promiscuity based on �life during Nixon�, are really out to lunch. If morals are absolute, then it�s wrong, and has always been wrong, and will always be wrong. If morals are relative, it�s wrong now because it�s so unhealthy.

graywolfe: �That being said, I have no doubt that a large majority of gay men and women in their 20's or older were fundamentally born with that sexual identity, and to oppress them for that identity is no different, in my view, than basic racism, prejudice, or sexism.� But is state non-recognition of �gay marriage� oppression? Is all �less than equal treatment� oppression? I don�t agree with letting lesbians or gays adopt children, over which the state has responsibility (for legal adoptions). I don�t like, but wouldn�t make it illegal, for lesbians to get artificially inseminated to have their own children. It wouldn�t bother me if it was illegal, and I wouldn�t call it oppression. (All who are not farmers are being oppressed by Bush�s recent farm bill)

Supporting gay marriage, supports the gay lifestyle choice of behaviors (therefore more gays), supports more gays being more promiscuous (in numbers, though perhaps not in percentages), supports more AIDS, supports more death. The gay lifestyle, and all those who defend it, is supporting more death. The pope articulated it: the culture of death.

And Eddie was right (long ago) about the pro-gay/ pro-AIDS need to fight against Christianity; the Christian morality has long been against homosexuals. The Christian family unit, and the focus on each individual as sacred have been pillars of Christian (Western) Civilization. Not ideal, but better than any real alternatives. But while I�m increasingly in agreement with that view, that�s not the point of my argument. I�ve been trying to argue in such a way that some who really are open minded can write how their minds might be changed.

Everard??? Are you chickening out? I asked for a number. Instead of you giving me yours, you asked for one of mine. I gave it. Where�s yours? (Or were your counter questions just close-minded BS?)

What do I expect? Well, I didn�t expect the Spanish Inquisition! (Boom! Crash! [Door bursts in] No one expects the Spanish Inquisition. Our chief weapon is surprise. And fear. Our two�) {or,} Well, I expected some pea brained wise guy who thinks he knows everything to speak up. To level my opposing arguments with devastating wit, to steam roll my disagreements with pile driving irony, to demonstrate once and for all that the right thinking people of the world will only laugh at, never answer, all the wrong-thinkers who ever pose a question that questions the majesty of the ivory tower citadel that those, the intellectually superior, morally advantaged, and obviously more humorous open minded folk, inhabit.

Do the facts matter? Is the argument against AIDs different if 90% of all gay men get it, or 50%, or 10%? Facts do matter to me. And I think they should.

So, TomD and Eddie�I believe gay marriage is cover for the gay lifestyle. I understand, please correct me if I�m wrong, that you believe social acceptance of gay marriage will reduce the promiscuity. A lot of anecdotal evidence has been noted here. Please show me some published evidence that many gays can live together in stable, monogamous pairs.

It could, for example, compare hets who sleep together, who live together monogamously, who get married and live together. How many stay together for 5 years or more? (For marriage it�s about 50% I�m fairly sure, live togethers much less.) Or the study could take 1000 hets and find out how many tried living with someone in the last 5 years, how many stayed together for 5 years (including getting married, but also separate out).

Then a similar study with gays. If the number (there�s that quantifying again) of gays who had stayed together was less than � the het number, I can guarantee you no fuzzy argument on your part will change my mind. Naturally, I do NOT know these facts; but my guess is that as many or more gays have �tried� living with somebody else, but their perseverance rate is much, much lower. On the other hand, if the number who did stay together was twice that of the het number, I would certainly think that the gay marriage argument was likely to lead to a better society.

If facts matter to a position, for or against legal recognition of gay marriage, what the facts should be in order to change from �for� to be �against� should be knowable, even if the facts themselves are not known, or knowable. As I write this, the real important facts I don�t know are: How many will get AIDS? with gay marriage, without? I�m afraid it�s unknowable. Other facts are only indications about this.

On the other hand, there are the two arguments of �principle�, gays are OK / gays are wrong, where the facts about AIDS infection doesn�t matter. I assume all who can�t come up with a (possibly unknown and unknowable) set of facts that could change their own position, are arguing from principle. The Christians are like this, against gays. The PC folk are for gays. Irrespective of the facts.

(Perhaps my late-entry challenges have something to do with the longevity of this thread � but it�s better than the Titan brain test LR linked too)

Oh no, it�s so late

Virtues of promiscuity:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/08/18/IN237263.DTL

I don't quite buy it, but it's interesting.

Everard:
>So freedom of religion isn't very important, when people being free to find their own moral paths leads to conflicts in moral view points?
I quite strongly believe in freedom of religion, and separation of state and church -- I don't know why you might think otherwise.
I don't think I had mentioned my opposition to state dictated schools (requiring students to take state approved tests twice a year would be OK) before.
Is your belief in the value of freedom of religion a "practical" or "ideological" one? For me, it's mostly practical, based on so many prior Euro wars with a religious component. Other countries seem to have similar war problems on religious lines, Hindu-Muslim comes to mind. It seems that more freedom would reduce those problems, not less.
However, if "freedom of religion" is creating a bad enough society, I'm willing to consider junking it. Of course, it would have to be clear a) the society was really bad (too many dieing) and b) the problem was due to freedom (highly unlikely to show this).

"Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing." (Vince never promoted any cheating, but this quote could.) When there's a physical platform held up by many wooden pillars, but a few are rotten so the platform falls, it usually can't be determined that one was to blame.
A reduced sense of right and wrong (it's OK as long as I don't get caught) certainly did contribute to Enron. As did inexperience with new financial instruments, and new trading markets, and slow evolving reporting scandals, etc.

LetterRip�s anti-10 Com link concludes:
>The solution is not posting a piece of paper on classroom walls. The solution lies in actively teaching children to recognize the impact of their actions upon other, and to differentiate between negative and positive impacts. Teach them ethics and morality from an early age. Don't give them rules, teach them to think.

This sounds OK, but I don't recall feeling oppressed as an agnostic in any way by the 10 Cs--if God doesn�t exist, the relevant phrases just aren't applicable. So what? How is it much worse or different than Santa Claus? I did and do believe giving was good.

And what about the many folks who do not think very well? I�m pretty sure society is better when teachers are focused more on behavior than beliefs; if some belief supports a certain good behavior, fine. But it seems one of the problems in many gov�t schools today is that the teachers are failing to get the students to learn to read, much less think � while that�s a different problem, it�s not clear they are unrelated. Still, before judging any moral code, there needs to be some agreement on what is morality.

Starting with Morality: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/morality-definition/
The term �morality� can be used either
1. descriptively to refer to a code of conduct put forward by a society or,
a. some other group, such as a religion, or
b. accepted by an individual for her own behavior or
2. normatively to refer to a code of conduct that, given specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons.
How morality is defined plays a crucial, although often unacknowledged, role in formulating ethical theories. To take �morality� to refer to an actually existing code of conduct is quite likely to lead to some form of relativism. Among those who use �morality� normatively, different specifications of the conditions under which all rational persons would put forward a code of conduct result in different kinds of moral theories. To claim that �morality� in the normative sense does not have any referent, that is, to claim that there is no code of conduct that, under any plausible specified conditions, would be put forward by all rational persons, results in moral skepticism.
----

I think there�s a bit of going back and forth between descriptive and normative. And actually I think it�s OK, I�ll do it too, but somebody should point out that it�s being done.

For those without God, it becomes 1b and 2 above: what�s accepted by the individual; and what society �should� do.

The LetterRip critiques of the first 4 Cs, especially, seem excessively negative, even if you don't believe in a J/C God. Consider these ratings, without God:
Taking at least one day off each week, when the standard is already two, seems pretty easy to say, yeah, people should usually take at least one day off; two or three are prolly even better. 9/10 (not sure which day is Sabbath). LR and the UCTAA guy almost certainly follow that behavior, and think society should.

Swearing, w/o God � as the �Reflector� notes, if this means being against all swearing, there is quite a lot to it. Well, I notice him using no curse words; similarly LR avoids them. Why? It seems sort of rude/ immoral to use them. Both �God D*mn� and �Sh*t� are frequently heard, but they�re not nice. So you avoid swearing, but don�t want to give the 3rd credit for saying you should avoid it? Is that really fair rating?

Since polite address is a good surrogate for polite respect of others, it�s actually quite an important one, too. Note the NYC idea of cleaning up graffiti and being tough on the little crimes, as leading to a reduction of bigger crimes. If you think avoidance of swearing is good for you, at least 4/5; if it�s good for others, another 4/5 = 8/10.

Now the 2nd, not bow down to graven idols, is pretty full of J/C God stuff to be ignored, but the relevant part is as I write, one should not bow down to idols and worship them. I don�t do this, I don�t think you do, I guess you�d think none should � although if they do, it�s mostly their affair. Depicting God, in painting or statue, seems clearly forbidden, and I disagree with this proscription. For today, I claim the worship as more important than the image making; and agnostics all follow the non-worship code, automatically. 4/10.

On to the 1st: no other gods before me. For non-believers, the Judeo-Christian �god� is primarily the 10 Cs, and general J/C behavior. In this view it is an exhortation to obey the J/C morality above all others. The more moral you think the other 9 are, the higher the score. Its value could then be the normalized value of the other 9; eg 31/90 = 3.4 or 54/90 = 6 or 44/90 = 4.9 or 77/90 = 8.55 (hint)

Finally, the 10th, no covetous thinking. Immoral thoughts, not action. The Reflector�s argument that everybody does it, some, seems mostly true but actually increases the value of this as a moral guide. Happier people do less of this � and maybe poorer people often do less, since they have accepted (too much?) their own non-advancement. Similarly, while one can�t control all thoughts, one can develop the habit of being thankful and appreciative of what one has; and practice thinking such thoughts when unbidden covetous thinking starts�and such practice is pretty good. But my way of reducing covetousness is not what�s written. Since such thoughts are very often the first, non-reasonable steps towards immoral actions, consciously choosing to avoid thinking them is clearly somewhat good.

Oh yeah, there is the huge pride aspect of the critique � why have rules if �everybody� is going to sin? Consider words from the link:
> The only reason for this particular commandment is to make it impossible to follow the rules. It makes everyone sinners regardless how blamelessly they pass their lives.

The clear, prideful desire to have some rules that can followed so as to get an �A�, 100%, number 1, top of the heap. But two of the most moral post WW II people, Gandhi and Mother Teresa, were both very humble, very non-covetous. The reason for the 10th, and the result when it is followed, is more morality.

(And this doesn�t even touch on destructive envy, the terrible desire for bad things to happen to your more fortunate neighbor. Adjusting envy to be competitive duplication and admiration, rather than destructive, has been a wonderful, though under-discussed American cultural feature.) So, thought covetousness 9/10.

My score: x, 4, 8, 9; 7, 10, 10, 10, 10; 9 = 77/90; + 8.6 = 86 / 100
(kind of interesting how LR�s 99.9% goes to 9, not 10)
And that�s why as an agnostic I like Christian �morality� � even without the Christian God.
But I do believe in �Good� vs �Evil�, and as I go to Catholic Church with my kids, I�m worshiping the Good I believe in �as if it is God�. Because I�m not sure it�s not.

Dear Ron,

Fine article in The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2002-09-12.htm

... The most successful Southern churches preach a deep personal faith, communal orthodoxy, mysticism, and puritanism, all founded on obedience to spiritual authority.... Whereas Americans imagine a Church freed from hierarchy, superstition, and dogma, Southerners look back to one filled with spiritual power and able to exorcise the demonic forces that cause sickness and poverty.
The places where Christianity is spreading and mutating are also places where the population levels are rising quickly�and, if Jenkins's predictions hold true�will continue to rise throughout the next century. The center of gravity of the Christian world has shifted from Europe and the United States to the Southern Hemisphere and, Jenkins believes, it will never shift back.

---

Interesting on-line interview with P. Jenkins, who claims the future of Christianity will be guided more by the "South", especially in Africa but also Latin America. With significant potential for conflicts of Islam vs Christian; and also Protestant vs Catholic, as in:

... most people would say that in Latin America one person out of every nine is a Pentecostal. In some of the areas of fastest growth, notably Peru and Mexico, there have been conflicts between Protestants and Catholics which look exactly like what would have happened in France and Germany around 1580. They even start the same way�the Catholics have a procession of the Virgin, the Protestants gather round and make fun of it, the Catholics go off and burn down the local church. At the moment that's largely at the level of rioting, except in some areas of southern Mexico where it really does look like civil war.

This is only some of what's in the interview; makes me want to read the article and even the book. It's pretty persuasive, demographically, that "reform" of the Catholic Church, as white liberal Americans might want, seems highly unlikely as the growth in the "South" is more coservatively oriented.

Tom

Ornery:
Tom,
I'm trying to figure out why I do not want my sons to become homosexuals, and why I object to its growing social acceptance.
I was successfully promiscuous when younger, too; but I'm generally having more frequent and more satisfying sex now.
(My wife is 12 years younger than I, that is also an issue I'm aware of; I think it matters, wish it didn't) ... no way would I want to go back!
What's wrong with a life lived for pleasure?
There's a meaninglessness of a "pleasure life", wasted in an opium dream, for instance. Today there is an insistent, aggressive need by some gays to have their lifestyle adopted as equally normal. But it's not equal. And the disagreement about whether society should change increases the resentment/ anger by some hets (including me).

Tied to AIDS and the desire of gays to avoid behavior change makes me more angry. I understand the argument that "gay marriage" would encourage a reduced number of partners, but really don't believe it. If fear of AIDS isn't enough, I doubt that being called "married" will be enough.

Another word, meaning homosexual committed partners, would be more acceptable. If the gays can steal the word "gay", they should be able to create or adjust another word.
Significant other is too long, I know.

And then I move back towards that materialism and objectification of people that I object to. And the fact that infidelity in marriage is an even bigger social problem. And here, I realize, are big problems I can't seem to do much about; but "gay marriage" is a little problem that my opposition might reduce, so I oppose it.

I hope Eddie can happily couple with a committed partner, with neither of them cheating on the other.

Armchair note:
I think that "resources" implies use and use value. The economically
efficient way to control resources is through property rights and
markets. I don't think there have been many users missing the use
value of the extinct species; though the potential in lost information
is certainly there.
The use value of the Dodo, was as a big, dumb, tasty
bird -- dogs apparently liked it. Chicken seems such a fine
substitute for this use that, while Dodos are gone, there are still
lots, in fact even more, dumb tasty birds.

I don't believe we'll be able to fully reconstruct all lost bio-species,
so their loss may well be a real, finite, lost information source.
The keys to "infinity of resources", such as oil, for instance, are
property rights, markets, and substitutability.
Once oil/a resource is owned, as it is used "up", the price will rise.
At some price point, other substitutes will become preferred
choice for use. Tech progress helps in the
substitution possibilities.

Large species extinctions are becoming rarer as the need for property rights
becomes more accepted (though also heavy gov't development restrictions
to protect some animals). Arabian Leopards, for instance, have been owned
in zoos and are starting to be bred, although the BBC interviewed expert
thought he wouldn't see them reintroduced into the wild in his lifetime.

In a similar way, there is no infinite supply of "Mona Lisa"(s), so if the
one original is lost, burned up, say, then it's gone. But it moves more
into the category of "treasure" than of resource. I think species are
more like a finite treasure than like a resource.

Tom Grey

Well, no memorial of last yea'rs Mt. Pelerin Society meeting. I gave a speech. Terrorists started a war. Just a coincidence.

So, back to school:
http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/interviews/int2001-11-28.htm
Good article.

How to write all I want to write? The notes to KDH. My tax-loan scheme. Harvard. Ludova/Kollar. Language. Lingea.

Rebecca Blood's blog pointed me to Canonical Tomes: http://www.canonicaltomes.org/ ; It is a volunteer-run site trying to catalog the defining works in every possible subject of study. Users can register books at the site and then vote on the books already submitted.

Good Idea -- needs critical mass. Categories tough; also needs search engine.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/

Teaching history online, some interesting history links every week.

(actually 9/7) Another winner, Andy; though Kagan was a BIG winner.
I'll look this guy up.
Maybe you can check out Orson Scott Card's (author Ender's Game;
Mormon hawk; fantastic writer) website, including other essays.
This one on peace, where in Arabic peace means "submission",
is really good, but OSC on civilization, for instance, is also
good. (OSC also notes that the best pro-Palestinian arguments are often made by Jewish Israel-supporters who want Israel to improve.)
http://www.ornery.org/essays/warwatch/2002-07-29-1.html

Remember Gary Hart? My idea is that the US should set, as its
contribution to the Kyoto Protocol, a federal tax revenue target
from gas taxes of 5%, and increase it every year. This should
be coupled with a tax refund, per taxpayer, of the same amount.
(The idea is to be revenue neutral), so the income tax goes down
while the gas tax goes up.

I read that Biodiesel, at current subsidized levels, can be sold
for about $1.35 /gal. Do you know about this? Or what the gas
price is, last year I thought it was around $1.30.
(pause while I look in google:)
Here's a note http://www.rendermagazine.com/August2001/TechTopics.html

Though pricing has a multitude of influencers such as volume, geographic distribution, delivery costs, Environmental Policy Act credits, and blend level, biodiesel has ranged in the $1.50 to $3.00 per gallon. Currently (June 2001) neat biodiesel (B100) costs are between $1.25 and $2.25 per gallon. This compares to a current price for No. 2 diesel at approximately $1.55 including state and federal taxes. Biodiesel is taxed as a diesel fuel (unlike ethanol), so taxes are added to the purchase price. Specific blends of biodiesel are commonly distributed products. B20 is a 20 percent biodiesel blended with 80 percent diesel and thus at current prices costs 13 to 20 cents more per gallon than diesel. The use of B20 has been shown to acquire a substantial reduction in the unfavorable emissions associated with petroleum-based diesel. Premium diesels that contain from two to five percent blend of biodiesel for specific properties such as lubricity generally command a premium price. Research has shown that the inclusion of two percent biodiesel into any conventional fuel is sufficient to address the lubricity concerns for low sulfur fuels. There are Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that are mandating a significant reduction in sulfur content from a current 500 parts per million (ppm) to a 15 ppm level by 2007. As sulfur levels are lowered, the lubricity properties of petroleum diesel become a concern for optimum engine operation and maintenance. This feature and market positioning are significant opportunities for biodiesel usage now and in the future.

---

Well, the point is to reduce taxes on renewables, and increase them
(even MORE, but like 1 penny/month increase) on oil products. And we (the world) need US defense to be strong. That's what government's for -- the "night watchman" minarchy I favor. And this early 5% could easily go up to 50% -- I think if people saw how expensive gov't was every time they pumped gas, they'd be more in favor of cutting it back.

But I guess I always try to reduce two problems (or more?) with one new action. The focus on oil, and hypocrisy of US calls for "democracy", can not make the US look good. Whether the US is a very good policeman or not is a further talk!

What do you think?

Tom

http://superbabs.ubiety.org/
Bab's blog, 14 NYC chinese punk 8th grader.
1988 + prolly

I hate it when I spend time adding stuff here, but it doesn't quite get posted.
It would be good to have a place here for my letters to others, and comments to others. Not sure how to do that, yet.
To the Samizdaters, I sent a reference to the War/Weakness article by Kagan.
Also a note to Brian on his distaste of crisps "showcase" for kids, including the idea of a competing service.

Another day, another combo of hard work & hard blogging play. Like V. Postrel says, it's too easy to pretend to be working while blogging. She sent me to the Atlantic to get the "Cloning Trevor" article.

After re-reading my 16 Jan response to Laura, I don't agree with her flames. I'll sleep better, anyway.