As a follow up to Darleen’s post, I’d like to offer a few thoughts that struck me immediately upon learning Ms Marcotte’s (predictable) position on the case in question.
Writes Amanda:
The theory that women have a natural urge to have babies is one that’s got a long and ignoble sexist history, […]
None of that is to say that the urge to have children that some (but far from all) women experience isn’t real, and that’s my other giant problem with the ongoing preoccupation with evo psych theories to explain things that are cultural constructs. That something is a cultural construct doesn’t make it less real, it just means that it’s more changeable. This seems like a small distinction, but it’s an important one. I am routinely accused by evo psych fans of denying that men and women are different. I do think there are major culturally constructed differences, and I think most of them exist to demean and oppress women and should be changed in the culture. That’s not to say that they aren’t real, but just that they’re changeable
— To which Darleen rightly replies:
Interestingly, no where would [Amanda] state something so positively about homosexuality or transgenderism … no, those aren’t subject to change at all, no social construct there.[…]
More than merely a nice gotcha moment, Darleen’s observation is an intellectually rigorous  and so important  catch. Social construct theorists like Amanda are often trapped by inconsistencies in their own arguments, which as Darleen (and others in the comments) point out are often selectively applied, and based, conveniently, on the specific ethical frame of those who would deny biology or essentialism in favor of an explanation for human action that is always necessarily about power relations and the construction of perceptions that act as if they were biological imperatives.
Deconstructing — and so re-conceptualizing — the “social construct†that Amanda suggests was built up by patriarchal forces to trick women into thinking the desire to procreate and “mother” is a biological imperative is, to her way of thinking, good. Re-conceptualizing the “social construct†that tricks homosexuals or the transgendered into thinking that their behavior is biologically driven, on the other hand, is reductive, evil, and Christianist.
In short, she wants to have it both ways — and she wants this precisely because it puts her in charge of deciding for everyone else what is right and what is wrong, socially speaking. Which is why to the astute observer, “social construct†theory  and we see this in race studies, as well  falls apart when pressured, and eventually reveals the wannabe Wizard behind the curtain. The imperatives of nature are replaced by the will of the theorist as the intentional force that gives meaning to the life-as-text.
Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that it is FAR MORE LIKELY that the way our bodies are built to function might have an effect on our behavior (estrogen, testosterone, menstruation, etc.) and that social constructs are then erected either to constrain biological impulses or to conserve them (this appears to be the opposite of what Marcotte believes), what we end up with, should we believe Marcotte’s anti-intellectual hokum, is a version of the kinds of arguments that, in the linguistic sphere, are anti-intentionalist in nature: to wit, the body and human behavior has no biologicially “intended” impetus — no originary meaning, at least in terms of social relations; therefore, it is valid, and indeed necessary, the argument goes, for a community of interpreters  in this case, Marcotte and the social constructionist feminists  to inscribe “meaning†onto observable behavior that others would posit is the product of biological imperatives, and in so doing, wrestle biology for control of the narrative they require to empower themselves politically.
That such obvious power plays are taken seriously in the intellectual arena as anything other than bald attempts to seize political control by seizing control of how “meaning” is determined is, as I’ve noted elsewhere, both incoherent and frankly mind boggling  and a clear indication that the institutionalization of “response†theoretics has progressed to the point where we must, indeed, either fight back or else become subsumed by interest groups bent on controlling “meaning†by purely rhetorical force.
Intentionalism, people. It’s what’s for dinner.
GET SOME!
I loves me some rich velvety nuance at lunchtime.
Oops. Swap places, please, Jeff.
Ugh. I wouldn’t hit that with a cartesian coordinate.
Is it worth posting this on Amanda Marcunt’s blog? or would it disappear immediately?
NOT worth it.
So Jeff, clear something up for this hard headed old Vagabond that hasn’t studied too much linguistics…
Would Marcotte’s whole song and dance, as discussed here, present a good example of non-metaphysical subjectivism?
And, does the Intentionalism come with a salad and desert..?
i was gonna say…how’s she gonna narrate around her lactating boobs and her period?
better yet, how’s she gonna pin the attendant psychological and emotional shifts on white males?
Not unless you enjoy a dozen “What Curmudgeon is really saying is that ___*____” posts down the thread.
(* insert “desire to rape women, control women, force women to bear evil children, deny women all medical care, beat women, suppress women, lock women in the home, make women lose their jobs, assert the Patriarchy, etc, etc, etc ad nauseum)
The entire blog is a group of ESPers.
Her post is already 200 comments plus of crazy. No, best to just avoid.
That reminds me. The desire to breathe isn’t a biological impulse either. It’s a social construct invented by Big Tobacco to trick kids into smoking. And they’ve gotten away with it for so long with the sheeple being none the wiser.
It’s almost too brilliant to put into words.
Come to think of it, blinking isn’t a biological impulse either.
And the usual result of trying to deny reality, and nature, is quite unpleasant. While the party may be able to get the proles to repeat that 2+2=5, it doesn’t make it so, and designing a bridge or a vehicle with that formula is going to produce some interesting results.
See the late Soviet Union for what happens when natural laws are ignored for the sake of political posturing.
So I take it that this Amanda person maintains that the ability to pee standing up is a social construct?
Glad to see you back, Jeff.
OT: Is Deb still harrassing Jeff? And is she still in Eugene, Oregon? If I get laid off, a stalking road trip may be in order.
Come to think of it, blinking isn’t a biological impulse either.
Best of set!
There he is! Great post Jeff.
Bacon Ninja, thank you. This morning has sucked and you brightned it up with your comment.
Actually I think that peeing sitting down would be the social construct. It’s a way to subjugate women by making them risk falling ass-first into the toilet every time they have to go at night, thus making them become irrational and enraged about such petty things as people who leave their toilet seat up, thus hindering their chances at a happy life, blah blah blah.
No problem, OI. I read this site all the time and figured that maybe I oughta say something every once in a while.
Plus, man. Big Tobacco. It’s crazy.
It’s really just intentionalism disguised, Bob. Only in Marcotte’s case — and in keeping this in line with intentionalism as it is applied to interpretation with respect to texts — Marcotte is privileging HER intent to re-signify the body-as-text in a way that matches her own desire to control meaning.
The body, in this analogy, is a text that has an intended meaning, one given it by its “author” (and depending on your belief system, that author can be evolutionary or metaphysical, and each new iteration is subject to a change in originary intent — this is what it means to evolve). Marcotte is the “reader” who has decided that the original intent as a way to govern meaning is constrictive, and so she has replaced biology with the man-made social construct argument, one that she controls.
Oh, boy. Resistant reading LA LA LA LA LA!
She Who Should Not Be Named was arrested back in Nov. on some sort of weapons charge, last I heard.
Careful, it’s still a touchy subject.
Since I have no desire to rape, fondle, or molest women in any way, am I a part of the Patriarchy? I would think being in an oppressed group would give me extra credit, but being against Roe vs. Wade(It’s a crappy law)probably trumps my victimhood.
Amanda’s premise I think though is that What this isn’t is evidence of some biological need to have children that’s innate and not culturally influenced. She also says that On the whole, I want to caution people against assuming that this case has anything to do with the experiences of most women.
I think she’s right about that much. This lady is just a freaky 8-kid havin’ weirdo.
Careful, it’s still a touchy subject.
Sorry to ruffle. It’s just that there must be some karmic way to make these “womyn” of the Left pay–very personally and intimately–for their actions. Visualize a stripped and bound Amanda subjected to the tender mercies of mullahs, for example.
You are an unindicted co-conspirator, Log Cabin.
So in a nutshell, Marcotte has the final word on everything, facts and logic aside?
In a smaller nutshell, Marcotte is batshit cuh-razy?
Deconstructing  and so reconceptualizing  the “social construct†that Amanda suggests was built up by patriarchal forces to trick women into thinking the desire to procreate and “mother†is a biological imperative is, to her way of thinking, good.
An interesting tweek, would be that men are often, primarily, interested in the sex portion of the dealo. Especially unmarried men. The desire for children is very often driven by the women.
So, I’m just wondering … how did teh Patriarchy! trick women into believing they wanted children, when they were just after a bit of nookie? Seems a bit counterproductive.
Unless, of course, the men are driven by some impulse (biological force) to procreate themselves … and while they thought they were just trying to get laid (like the women tricked into believing they wanted to be mommies), in REALITY they were ACTUALLY trying to be fathers.
I’m so confused.
Regardless, to accept Mandy’s version of this, you have to make a lot of assumptions that just don’t hold water.
The left in general has that ability. They use it to find motives no one else can discern.
Thank Jeff, I believe I get the difference.
Amanda is not simply basing her interpretation of the fundamental nature of human biology and psychology on her personal experiences, but trying to assign them a whole new meaning to satisfy her rhetorical needs…
Which is what makes this technique such a useful political device. But it’s a device that is completely at odds with understanding the underlying truths surrounding a particular subject matter or issue…
It’s kind of like Dr. Hansen at NASA fudging his temprature data to fit his preconcieved hypotesis, isn’t it..?
Related
Stabenow is a fucking idiot, Dan. But, I’m behind her appointment if it takes her out of Michigan.
Thanks a lot, Carin.
Exactly. It is also a culprit in AGW through the release of those pesky CO2 molecules.
Stopping all that extra breathing from happening will be a special project. Much planning involved.
Professor Ayers has already worked out the basics borrowing heavily from Lenin and Stalin.
Human being is a failed social construct.
There is no way he could pick her. She’s a fucking idiot. So, rest assured and all that.
Since I have no desire to rape, fondle, or molest women in any way, am I a part of the Patriarchy?
Log Cabin, you do know we don’t have cooties, right?
;)
The Octa-mom? I eff’ed her.
Yeah. Me.
And I did so intentionalistically.
The Man in the Yellow Hat
But if Stabenow’s taxes are on the up-and-up, I think we’ll have a winner.
I’m telling your monkey on you.
I’m sure Stab-U-now will fit right in to the Obama cabinet. Idiocy is preferred.
Next up, will Gov. Jenny appoint someone smart or just another Party hack.
I don’t know if her husband paid unemployment taxes on that hooker he hired.
Or, is prostitution an independent contractor thing?
Socially constructed or not, I think I speak for the entire human race when I say Thank You to Marcotte for gamely resisting the pressure to reproduce.
What does Amanda care about humans? Pffffft!
“…the ongoing preoccupation with evo psych theories to explain things that are cultural constructs.”
Sorry, honey, but human nature never changes.
Ever read Aeschylus? Homer? Sun Tzu? Shakespeare?
If women don’t have an urge to make babies, why have they ever let themselves get bamboozled into having sex with men. Ewwwwww. (No offense intended, Log Cabin).
I’m sure that if I reread The White Goddess, I’ll find the part where they used to reproduce by parthenogenesis.
Leaving aside for the moment the obvious fact that it is FAR MORE LIKELY that the way our bodies are built to function might have an affect on our behavior (estrogen, testosterone, menstruation, etc.)
If she was right there would be no market for this.
These political controversies have been afoot for over six hundred years. The terminology has changed but the struggle is the same. Nature, as determinative of normalcy, used to be termed teleological. Pointing to an end, a goal, a growth by nature. And ultimately, it was thought, to a right order of politics, by nature.
The teleological conceptual scheme of the ancients was supposedly laid to rest by [modern science] and modern political theory, of course all the while science had nothing to put in its place as an effective substitute for guidance as to the right polity beyond human will.
Leo Strauss, from his Preface to the American Edition of The Political Philosophy of Hobbes: Its Basis and Its Genesis
And from the original Preface to the same work:
Wasn’t that a lost chapter of “The Clan of the Cave Bear”, where the Storks descend and grant the tribe its next generation, without all that icky reproducing business.
She believes in intelligent design.
The imperatives of nature are replaced by the will of the theorist as the intentional force that gives meaning.
If you don’t do at least a bit of this you will probably get fat I think.
“…social constructs are then erected to constrain biological impulses”
Heinlein described raising children as taming wild animals. Use lots of love and the occasional slap on the heinie.
If I may say so, Scottish Kate and I turned out 3 pretty good people that way.
Jeff, do you think Amanda reached her conclusion from a heurisic method?
heuristic
What about all the ancient matriarchal societies and their fertility cult ritualism? Just men pretending to cede power so that they could be left alone to bet on the wooly mammoths fights?
Boys night out, honey!
Can’t speak for her, kelly, but I doubt there was anything rigorous involved in the thinking. I suspect she began with the conclusion and worked backward to justify it.
Along these lines, I express concern about a Gay/Straight Alliance club in my son’s high school – not so much for the Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, Curious, Questioning, Perplexed aspect – but because of the nature of club but because it had frequent off-campus meetings and the fliers made a point of saying that the club was for people aged 13-22.
Ummmmm …..
Twenty-Two?
I don’t care if it’s the effing Glee or Chess Club involved – adolescent high school kids and 21-22 year olds are a “Nope”
–
ps. and I checked, the “22” was not a result of including special needs students with IEPs in the club’s charter. They just thought that college students should be included. Or something. They weren’t really clear.
.
What does “special needs” mean, in this context?
I think if you find yourself being routinely accused of anything by evo psych fans then it’s really likely that the stuff you’re writing is tedious and goofy.
Log Cabin, you do know we don’t have cooties, right?
;)
I love my conservative sisters for their brilliant MINDS! I am a true feminist!
Jeff –
When basic pregnancy and birthi have a 1 in 5 chance of either killing the mom, the baby, or both – you bet your ass there’s going to be fertility cults.
With the somewhat recent invention of safe, effective birth control, day-after pills, and abortion-on-demand, plus prenatal care and ob/gyn services — plus wi-fi, so a woman can keep working right up until delivery — the recontextualization of the signifiers formerly associated with the fertility cults have begun.
The statue of a big penised dude women prayed to has been replaced by Oprah.
For better or worse.
#62
Winner of the thread.
“What does “special needs†mean, in this context?”
Need to get their freak on. Specially.
special needs is anything that qualifies under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) … if the student has a qualifying condition – for example mental retardation, “school age” is moved up until the child is, iirc, 21.
Yeah, BumperS.
You’d think some honest academic not writing on a blog might point this kinda thing out.
What is it about choosing mixed floral wall paper borders and just the right necktie for a plaid jacket, why are homosexual men so good at doing that?
Are you posting in the wrong thread again, thor?
*golf clap*
What is it about choosing mixed floral wall paper borders and just the right necktie for a plaid jacket, why are homosexual men so good at doing that?
I am intrigued that you are so familiar with those things, Thor.
A little too familiar.
Just how wide is your stance, tough guy?
Doesn’t seem much more off-topic than his usual comments, Techie.
Queer Eye for the Tough Guy? Hmmmmm.
Just how wide is your stance, tough guy?
I volunteer to judge.
Bumperstickerist – I’m sure all school clubs invite college kids to join. @@
The more this subject gets canvassed, the more convinced I become that here lies the fundamental distinction between “liberal” and “conservative”.
A conservative does not believe that human will can alter Universe. Things that work, work. Things that don’t work, don’t. When something new is proposed, the prime question is “will it work?”
This leads to a preference for the already-tried, which in its extreme form rejects anything new a priori — which is no more than our old friend the bell curve operating on the universe of discourse.
The liberal, on the other hand, believes that exertion of will alone — usually, but not necessarily, in the form of “rights” or some such formulation — will cause the result to conform to desires. Wishing will make it so. Tinkerbell lives!
Regards,
Ric
To extrapolate, Ric: if wishing doesn’t make it so then you’re not wishing hard enough!
At least you’re admitting you’re not familiar with my stance, nor shall you be, nttawwt.
Jeff often speaks of dinner and smoking jackets when on Breitbart, but per the pics they rotated of him in his black concert t and ill-fitting denims, I predict he’d benefit from your picking out an off color coordinated pocket handkerchief for either jacket in his wardrobe.
Be the ball, Danny.
Boy, this sure seems like a swing and a miss for you righties.
Everybody wants to do the nasty.
Why they want to do it is is flexible.
Doesn’t seem that hard to get.
Not surprisingly, those with an external higher power, be it God, god, Nature’s God, or some set of concrete principles rooted in reason, accountability, and fact, select the conservative path more often than not. Will alone cannot alter reality; the absolute exists, just as claiming it does not is a fallacy.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 1:29 pm #
Everybody wants to do the nasty.”
So, have you ever had sex, alpo?
With a real girl?
oh hey. You’re the first straight guy I’ve ever heard say “ill-fitting denims.”
Boy, this sure seems like a swing and a miss for you righties.
Go back and read it again.
No, and that’s the dangerous part.
If wishing doesn’t make it so then somebody is wishing against you; that person is a villain, to be hunted down and done away with. Negative vibes need to be eliminated, man.
Regards,
Ric
No Brain,
A shorter version of what Jeff and Darleen is saying is that anyone who joins the Navy or the Marines is obviously gay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InBXu-iY7cw
The idea that some might have joined because of patriotism is flexible feminist dogma.
When you knock the shit out of it off the number one tee box and land it sweetly on the green and into the cup of the number six hole it’s because ya fucked up, parsnip. That hole-in-one does not win you a shiny, new Buick. You’re shooting at the wrong fuckin’ hole. The game has rules.
BTW: Care to explain your “CIA funded the Janjaweed” bullshit?
thor,
If The number one hole is a par 3, then most likely they’re all par 3’s. Course is probably lighted too.
or not
Anybody got a clue on what the hell those two are jabbering about?
I’m not particularly interested in fashion tips from someone who goes by astrobeefcake.
PRPS jeans are supposed to fit as they do in the pic. Trust me: I make Stacy and Clinton proud.
The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash.
-Some British dude
Techie,
Parsnip says Republicans hate sex, so want to restrict it to a minimum. Thor says Universe is heteronormative. The rest is blather designed to make them sound smarter than they are.
Regards,
Ric
Probably. Geithner might know. Or Spitzer, maybe.
Either way, I don’t think I’d take Amanda’s advice on tax matters…
Think bigger hips if you can’t roll up on the green on short par 4’s. Just remember, big-legged woman ain’t got no soul. It’s all in releasing the power from those fully cocked wrists and the big hips!
I used to be 300+ with a draw and 260 off the turf with a 3-wood. Par 5’s are birdy holes don’t’cha know.
And of course, parsnip — as he’s done in every incarnation here — won’t address an argument head on. He’ll instead try to make some oblique reference and hope that makes him look like what he’s saying is considered.
But he hasn’t made any kind of argument, and the suggestion that “A shorter version of what Jeff and Darleen is saying is that anyone who joins the Navy or the Marines is obviously gay” is simply too ludicrous to even address. The fact is, there’s no reason to shorten what I’ve written: I’ve explained the thinking behind my argument right there for everyone to see.
If you wish to argue that sexual roles and impulses are mostly or all the result of some or other social construct, have at it. I’ll address any such arguments.
Off to work out — not because I wish to stay healthy, but because men’s magazines have suggested to me that if I don’t look ripped, I won’t land me a supermodel.
God, how I hate that they objectify me into becoming a slave to my body. Heart attacks are social constructs meant to keep us looking good on beaches so our girlfriends aren’t embarrassed to sit next to us.
Dan, your comment, above, that “human being is a failed social construct,” strikes a chord. While it at first blush appears to be hyperbole, it states a handy premise for anyone who spends her time bleating that some lives may — indeed should — be discarded in favor of the convenience and career plans of other lives.
Off to work out  not because I wish to stay healthy, but because men’s magazines have suggested to me that if I don’t look ripped, I won’t land me a supermodel.
huh. I work out to check out the guys at the gym. But, you know, to each their own.
And of course, parsnip  as he’s done in every incarnation here  won’t address an argument head on. He’ll instead try to make some oblique reference and hope that makes him look like what he’s saying is considered.
Is thor just a nastier pargimp?
You, sir, just got yourself scratched from the invitation list for the next tableux vivant on my veranda.
God, how I hate that they objectify me into becoming a slave to my body. Heart attacks are social constructs meant to keep us looking good on beaches so our girlfriends aren’t embarrassed to sit next to us.
Egad, Jeff has liberated me from feeling fat and old. Well, I am. But now I realize that fatness and oldness are mere social constructs!
Thank you, thank you, Jeff!
(I still won’t sit on a beach, though.)
It’s correctly spelled tableau vivant, but you know damn well what I mean, buster!
It’s correctly spelled tableau vivant, but you know damn well what I mean, buster!
Actually, I think it is spelled tableaux.
In any case, I wouldn’t be invited for other reasons, but how long would it last?
Whooo-eeee!
Amanda is the perfect woman!
Come to my house, fuck me, and them get in your car and drive yourself home. I already blew my wad, so get the fuck out of here, I need most of the rest of the night to “reload”.
The new millineum “perfect woman”.
And fuck you if you have any morals at all – you are a Neanderthal if you think that sex is any different than taking out the garbage…
uh-oh! I think I have just run afoul of the Lightgiver.
AAAAAARRRRRRGH!!!! HELP ME, OH LIGHTGIVER! Let me know that I am wrong to believe that children should have a family, and that those who work deserve their just rewards.
What? You say you have to pay back all the morons – oh, excuse me – the people who want something for nothing? Well, fuck you. I quit!
Ny apologies to all the people who work 16 hours a day to have a decent life, but between my ex-wife and the morons in three piece suits, it just ain’t worth working for a living anymore.
Anybody in construction/ contracting? I want to thank each and every one of the greedy motherfuckers who paid the immigrants $12.50/Hr, and charged them out at $60/Hr.
You greedy motherfucking assholes have reduxed my wages to just above welfare.
I hope you are proud of yourselves, living in McMansions that you are about to lose, because the very people you tried to rape are now bidding at YOUR rape price.
Thanks again, you greedy motherfuckers! I love working for $29/Hr, when eight years ago I was pulling in $40 -$50 an hour.
Greed is it’s own punishment, you fucking morons!
“Enough with the negative waves, Moriarty.”
“Woof! Woof! That’s my other dog imitation.”
Dunno. I come to pretty much the same conclusion without invoking a deity. The universe is really fucking huge. Hell, just our planet is fucking huge. And the behaviors we’ve acquired over the millenia may not be all that arbitrary.
I think you add the x if it’s plural, tableaux vivants, but admittedly that comes from Wikipedia.
I’m off to drink cheap beer from a tap, enough with smartassing Jeff.
Now, now, TLD, the illegal immigrants are just doing the jobs Americans won’t do.
Jeff often speaks of dinner and smoking jackets when on Breitbart, but per the pics they rotated of him in his black concert t and ill-fitting denims, I predict he’d benefit from your picking out an off color coordinated pocket handkerchief for either jacket in his wardrobe.
Again the obsession with Jeff and his fashion. Hmm…
I guess that my gaydar is not working properly and that you are as straight as Ryan Seacrest.
#76 Ric Locke:
Triumph Of The Will!
“Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 1:41 pm #
No Brain,
A shorter version of what Jeff and Darleen is saying is that anyone who joins the Navy or the Marines is obviously gay:”
‘Fraid not, cocksucker.
My Marine son is married. To a female. And has had sex with her. ‘Cause I got a grandchild.
So, back to the original question:
So, have you ever had sex, alpo?
With a real girl?
And the behaviors we’ve acquired over the millenia may not be all that arbitrary.
I found it fascinating that the fruit fly (sorry, I do not know genus-species) has like 200 times the number of genes we humans have. I thought it might have something to do with free will vs. completely determined way of life. Curious.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 1:52 pm #
The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy, and the lash.
-Some British dude”
NOW you got a woody, right, alpo?
Ev psych is bullshit, say the feminists. T Now, it would be strange to find folks like this insisting that a million years of environmental pressure and selection decided to leave this particular issue alone. Evolution is the Holy Writ otherwise.
B But if it’s cultural, it can be changed, and, even if not, men can be blamed, which is almost as good. Better, in fact.
First, Welcome back, Jeff. Dancing armadillos are the aperitif. Articles like that are the meat and potatoes.
Second, it seems a lot of folks overlooked this little gem:
“In short, she wants to have it both ways  and she wants this precisely because it puts her in charge of deciding for everyone else what is right and what is wrong, socially speaking.”
A trap that we all fall into from time to time.
Who gave any of us the right to decide what is right or what is wrong for anyone else?
Personally, that’s been a problem with most people I’ve ever met. At some level, at some point in any relationship, they do their very damnedest to impose their will upon others. Personal threats and coercion are often involved, however well disguised. At the more extreme, which has now become normative from both the left and the right, as well as the so-called center, “There oughta be a law!” “The government oughta do somethin’!”
Contemporary libertarians and may a self-described classical liberal are often no different.
In the meantime, most of us are doing something that someone else wants to stop or to control…as long as that someone else doesn’t have to sacrifice any freedoms or liberties, themselves.
in the end, we have 200,000 pages of laws in the Federal Code and millions of additional regulations at the state and local level…and we can’t understand why the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any nation on earth. Then, we wonder why our government has grown so large …and why our freedoms and liberties are disappearing like an ice cube on a hot griddle.
Of course, it’s always someone else’s fault. We aren’t trying to control anyone, ourselves. We just want them to do what is right!! …of course, we simply want to control the lives of others….by deciding what is right for everyone else.
As an example, Parship, in #79 had a legitimate point. Of course, at the same time, by not examining his/her own assumptions, Parship missed the point.
Hypocrisy, thy name is ideology.
Blaming everyone but ourselves, no matter how well our arguments hold together logically and rationally – and even reasonably – in our own eyes and in the eyes of those who think just the way we do, is a bit stupid of us.
(see also: Neuroplasticity. Teaching an old dog new tricks can be difficult, but it can be done. )
Ted Haggard was married to a woman and had kid, No brain.
And yet, in between giving sermons to his troubled flock on how to live a righteous, Republican life, he was snorting meth off the tightt buns of male hookers.
Back on topic, Haggard claims his fellow holymen have cured him of his gayness and he is now a “heterosexual with issues.”
*giggle*
You religios cack me up.
NOW you got a woody, right, alpo?
I do. I’ll bet Thor does, too.
The only revenge to their wage-cutting ways is to fly to Costa Rica and negotiate renting their daughters at pre-Aztec rates. Not that I’d do anything of the sort.
#Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 2:36 pm #
I’m areligious, you fucking retarded marmoset.
Now answer the question.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 2:36 pm #
Ted Haggard was married to a woman and had kid, No brain.”
That’s two up on you, fucktard.
Now answer the question:
Have you ever had sex, alpo?
With a real girl?
Blowup dolls don’t count.
How is it that folks who profess to believe in Darwinism and evolution can’t accept an instinctual drive to reproduce? Can you explain that to me, tuberhead? Is man truly different from all the other animals? Are we special, then?
I ain’t no religio, parnsip. Got an argument to make, or are you content to just pretend giggle for supposed ironic effect?
Another thread down the dreck hole.
Giggling to girlish effect.
Here you go, thor. Rather than the bootcut I was wearing in that pic, these are straight legged and more fitted.
You are welcome to purchase them for me. Once you do so, I will be happy to model them with a velvet or maybe leather cowboy blazer and maybe a Robert Graham Samurai shirt.
To the NINES, baby!
Just got done doing ten rounds of thai boxing with a 40 lb weight vest on. I’m feeling chippy!
See those are expensive. You should get on their mailing list.
I think you’re as confused by what Amanda said as Jeff and Darleen are, B Moe.
Men and women engage in lots of sexual acts that have a very low probability of producing a child.
Darwin never said we couldn’t have fun.
As long as the dreck hole is the heteronormative hole I’m down.
Why’s everyone poppin’ party mix pimp-slaps on parsnip?
oh. They don’t have a mailing list.
No, Parnsip. I think you miss the point. This is nothing to do with having sex merely for pleasure — that was by “design”/selection, too, though the pleasure from an evolutionary perspective was likely meant to increase the chance of offspring. We have found ways to live with that AND not produce.
Well, except for some Catholics, I guess.
What Amanda is saying is that the evolutionary imperative to reproduce doesn’t really exist — that it is social construct. It is REAL, she concedes, but real as a SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, and so adaptable to change by human will alone. In a sense, this is true: we can often constrain our biological insticts by way of agreed upon social contracts, and so create social constructs to militate against biological norms.
But that’s not what Amanda means. Instead, she is arguing that there are no biological imperatives, only social constructs that act AS IF they were biological imperatives.
This is nonsense, and as both Darleen and I (and others) noted, when pressured, it becomes obvious that Amanda would change her tune with respect to other biological imperatives as it suits her political needs.
Off to lunch now. Enjoy your constructs! Mine will involve bread and salmon salad, I think.
I remember watching a documentary that showed how the urge to merge (reproduce) affected everything in the biosphere: how an organism looks, how it behaves, what it eats, etc. And they’re probably right. It was a very convincing argument.
Until they reached the end. Where they observed that some humans prefer others of their own sex. “But we don’t question it because it’s not science,” or some extraordinarily illogical statement.
My jaw is still in my lap after all these years.
Look, the behavior and roles that other animals play is determined by their genes, their brain structure, and especially their hormones, which are powerful behavior modifiers.
And if we humans have those same genes and hormones, why wouldn’t some of our behavior, especially as it pertains to reproduction be influenced  nay even controlled  by those hormones and genes and resulting brain structures.
Ric: If you’ve read Liberal Fascism, you’ll see that the perceived mutability of human nature and the desire to create “new men” was at the root of the totalitarian movements of the 20th century.
May they not emerge victorious in the 21st.
Amanda will go as batshit crazy as every other hoochie when she’s 39 and ain’t had no baby I bet.
I’ve heard with those foreign cuts there’s no comfort allowance for California freeballin’. Couldn’t buy ’em for ya and keep a clean conscious, Swan.
I just wear a big rubber band, dicentra.
Men and women engage in lots of sexual acts that have a very low probability of producing a child.
Yes they do, but that is not natural behavior. The natural reason to have sex is to reproduce. Everything else is just gravy.
from an evolutionary perspective was likely meant to increase the chance of offspring
Haha, Jeff.
Darwin said we’re just the sum total of random changes that just happened to let our ilk survive so far.
What you wrote there is religion.
#138, spoken like someone who has never taken an advanced biology class in their life.
Where, techie?
At Bob Jones Unversity?
Spoken like someone completely incapable of rational thought.
Darwin said we’re just the sum total of random changes that just happened to let our ilk survive so far.
But none of those changes could have happened if folks stopped fucking and having children, that isn’t random at all bonehead.
Don’t skimp on the gravy.
Going back over the post, this stuck out to me more and more:
[None of that is to say that the urge to have children that some (but far from all) women experience isn’t real, and that’s my other giant problem with the ongoing preoccupation with evo psych theories to explain things that are cultural constructs. That something is a cultural construct doesn’t make it less real, it just means that it’s more changeable.]
So, if Ms. Marcotte says the urge that “some women experience” is real, but a social construct, isn’t that urge then a representation of the Patriarchy? Is she then willing to condemn these women for succumbing to the Patriarchal Hegemon, thus betraying the sisterhood? Wouldn’t “desiring children” be giving the Evil Other what it wants, irregardless of a woman’s individual intent?
But none of those changes could have happened if folks stopped fucking and having children
Welcome to the reality-based community, B Moe.
Fucking and having children are two separate thinks, just like Amanda said.
I can’t believe Dan Collins stiffed Liz Stephens.
Answer the question, alpo.
Dunno, ever heard of “macro” or “micro” evolution? You do realize that Darwin wrote his theories well before any real knowledge of genetics existed, right? And that Biology has moved beyond a book published a century and a half ago?
#Comment by thor on 2/4 @ 3:19 pm #
That’s nice, hor.
Now go take your happy pills and have a nice long nap.
The adults are talking here.
Ah, to be delightfully obtuse.
He did?!? Way to go, Dan!
Amanda is a dirty whore with a tattered vagin. She smells funny too
“Darwin said we’re just the sum total of random changes that just happened to let our ilk survive so far.”
Um, well, no,he didn’t say that.
You moron.
And let’s hear it for the moby!
Oh boy, that P’brain marmoset who responds to his own echo hints he has a explicated proclamation of Darwin on the tip of his tongue. Don’t swallow it, spit it out, ya dumb bitch. (God knows it’s rare that I state that.)
Comment by thor on 2/4 @ 3:31 pm #
[smiles and nods at the crazy raging on the street corner]
If women don’t have an urge to make babies, why have they ever let themselves get bamboozled into having sex with men.
1. Alcohol
2. An insanely high level of gullibility.
Just keep in mind, N. Brian, that to others, you are the crazy who’s raging on the street corner.
My question is this:
What happens when to crazies get together on that street corner, raging at one another, as well as at everyone they meet?
Will a new social construct be the result? Will a new and better social contract be achieved?
Well, that’s present day America. Two crazies raging on the street corner, trying to tell everyone else how to live…and using the threat of force, both real and implied, to do so.
Problem is, that neither crazy thinks that he, himself, is bug-fuck, bat-shit crazy, nuts. It’s always the other guy that needs stronger meds and medical supervision.
Jeff – great analysis, but you steered clear of the fertile ground of “false consciousness” as used by the Feminists.
You see, even if one hundred women tell you seriatim that they were compelled to have babies and nurture them, their experience can be nullified by stating that they suffer from a “false consciousness.” Then, you assert the experience of properly indoctrinated Feminist women, and ipso facto, the evidence is all on the Feminist side.
What I’ve never understood is a) why “false consciousness” ‘analysis’ isn’t applied to the self-described Feminist?; and b) why, if loads of women could be blissfully happy under a “false consciousness,” and undoing “false consciousness” causes all sorts of human pain and suffering and reorienting of societies, we don’t just let it be?
Usually, when I tell a woman she doesn’t know what the fuck she is talking about, I sleep on the couch.
Y’know, monkyboy, once in a while you transcend yourself.
You don’t need to study at Bob Jones University. You need to lecture there — the assumptions you are making are identical to the ones that lead to “Intelligent Design”. In fact, the only reasonable interpretation of your remarks in this thread are that you’re a Designist yourself, and should offer a course.
Regards,
Ric
“Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/4 @ 3:45 pm #
Just keep in mind, N. Brian, that to others, you are the crazy who’s raging on the street corner.”
Sorry you feel that way, Warren, but hor and parsnip are a pair of despicable creatures, and I will never, ever let them forget it.
Just look upthread where parsnip, may her yeast infection never heal, call my son a faggot.
Keep in mind that the son he’s talking about is an active duty Marine deployed, as we speak, with 3/8 in Afghanistan, risking his life so pussies like hor and parsnip can insult his manhood.
They are vile, they are despicable, and I conceed not one inch to them.
Is it safe to say that Amanda has never heard the phrase “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
As an example, Warren:
“From the “Gaza Conflict” thread:
Comment by parsnip on 1/7 @ 3:08 pm #
Look at the pictures at the bottom of what a sick, sick culture the Arab children live in.
Kinda how I picture the upbringing you provided to your kids, No Brain.
Did they join a violent militia, too?
I think they did.”
To alpo, the USMC is a “violent militia”.
What kind of sick, America-hating asshole could write that?
Everybody wants to do the nasty.
Why they want to do it is is flexible.
Except for the Octuplet mom that Amanda’s idiocy originated about.
Rick Locke (76), I think you’re dancing around Sowell’s notion in “A Conflict of Visions”-that (mostly) liberals think human nature can be changed by raw enthusiasm and/or reading Marx.
My question is, at what point in history did we figure out that sex leads to pregnancy? Before or after the “social construct” of language? Where does that fit in to the simple desire for sex, vs. a “desire for children.”
You know what else is a social construct? That sweet stuff tastes good. It doesn’t really, Nestle and Hershey just made that shit up.
I am extremely far behind in reading the threads today (work and family duties interfere with my free time), but just wanted to say how much I appreciate the posters and the commenters here at PW! An acquaintance convinced me to take a look at the “great” blog she’s been following because it is so much fun and so informative, so I decided to take a look even though I knew the political leanings would be slightly different than mine. Oh my gosh! I have always been appreciative of the tone and rigor and friendliness of PW. I enjoy the commenters and their ability to think and discuss. But after spending 5 minutes lurking over there (it’s all I could take) I am reminded once again that we have a very special community over here. Thanks guys!
Parsnip is proving himself to be way out of his league. Everything he says self-deconstructs. It’s fascinating to watch.
Now, were he to share his “ironies” over at Pandagon, maybe he’d get a flew claps on the back. But here? He seems confused between religion and the idea of, say, the selfish gene…
So, if Ms. Marcotte says the urge that “some women experience†is real, but a social construct, isn’t that urge then a representation of the Patriarchy? Is she then willing to condemn these women for succumbing to the Patriarchal Hegemon, thus betraying the sisterhood? Wouldn’t “desiring children†be giving the Evil Other what it wants, regardless of a woman’s individual intent?
Techie, that’s exactly what Alec is saying @139. People like Amanda have a hard time buying the fact that people can possibly see the world differently than she does. There must be some kind of pathology at work, and “false consciousness” is its name.
See, women only “think” that they want to reproduce because they’ve been effectively brainwashed by Teh Patriarchy. Amanda and her ilk see the world clearly and therefore ought to be in charge of the rest of us unenlightened brutes.
It’s another basis for “fascism,” IIRC.
N. Brian, as long as we don’t become that which we despise in the process. A tyrant is a tyrant is a tyrant, no matter how valid the original ‘worthy cause.’ To claim to hate the insults others offer and then return insult for insult is the use of force. We attempt to force our will upon others, which kinda goes agains the whole classical liberal thingy. In any case, it’s just words on a screen, here in the interwebs.
 If we prevent others from deciding what is right for us, or what is right for their neighbors and fellow citizens, we have done well. If *we* start deciding what is right for others, we have become what we have despised and hated. That’s my point.
‘sides, “He did it first!” is a case of post hoc, ergo propter hoc.
“Everybody wants to do the nasty – Why they want to do it is is flexible.”
I always presumed that the point of the whole matter was to give a really urgent and self-motivating cause for coupling that divorces copulation from birth in the nether regions of the brain. That children are collateral to any single act of copulation does not mean that children are collateral to the human sexual relationship.
It is human civilization that asserts the direct relationship between copulation and birth, and imposes duties arising from a man’s fruitful sexual relationship with a woman. It is, as Jeff says, a “social construct” to harness biology and direct it in a productive manner. As Dalrymple has stated, and Jeff referenced, early human societies were matriarchal, and unstable by virtue of the fact that male energy was not harnessed into the productive cause of head of household, but rather was in the character of rutting Stags.
Heh. I said the same thing to him a few weeks back.
No offense, but I gotta say “Warren Bonesteel” would be a great name for a porn star.
Warren is a great name for where bunnies live.
“Everybody wants to do the nasty – Why they want to do it is is flexible.â€Â
Not really. You want to do it because it feels good, you enjoy it. The reason it feels good is because it is the prime biological imperative, if you don’t do it the species dies. It is the same reason food tastes good, particularly those foods that were harder to get early on: fat, sugar and salt. We have health problems today because we have learned how to make these things plentiful, but our primitive craving for them still exists. Sex is no different, civilization and technology may have opened a concious divide between sex and procreation, but it is ludicrous to deny the biological.
#165 Dan Are — Yes, you have the beginning of a line of argument that leads to something similar to Amanda’s position. See if you can work it all the way through; it’s a good mental exercise. The key is that Amanda didn’t proceed from that line of thought — she jumped directly from (her) desired conclusion back up the chain to necessary assumptions, without connecting the dots. It fails to convince.
Which it would anyway, because evolution doesn’t work like that.
Absent such SF as “uterine replicators”, the only way to get more of species X is for the members of species X to have sex with one another, and the only way that will work is if males have sex with females. Start with that. It’s the pole, and can’t be shifted.
A species whose members don’t enjoy male-female sex (for many iterative meanings of “enjoy”) won’t participate in it. There will therefore be no further members of that species, which will disappear. This is where monkyboy and the other designists lose the thread. There are millions, possibly billions, of mutations. They happen all the time. We, here, today, are the result of the teenytiny, ridiculously small number of mutations that WORKED.
In the case of human beings, there is an additional consideration. Your human newborn is a pitiably helpless object, a semimobile lump of protoplasm whose only attribute is noise at inappropriate times (if you’re hiding in the woods). Consider a humanlike species that did not “want” (again, for many meanings of “want”) offspring, or didn’t give a damn if they had them. How many of that species would be willing to invest the time and effort to support the mother in the last month or so of pregnancy, let alone the (minimum) two or three years required to allow the infant to develop sufficiently to survive? Now: parenting is complex behavior; it follows that if there is an “urge to parent”, it must be correspondingly complex — but if it did not exist, we wouldn’t be here; we would have been eaten by dire wolves directly out of the womb.
It therefore follows that the “urge to parent” exists and is conserved by evolution — and, as stated above, it’s very complex. Consider those millions and billions of mutations. It wouldn’t take much of a mutation to knock out some portion of the parenting urge, because that urge is composed of many lesser urges working in concert. At this point we take off into speculation, specifically, that the existence of “societies” is an extragenetic means of conserving the urge to parent. Genetic means aren’t sufficient for such a complex behavior; we had to develop societies in order to reinforce it and to counteract the inevitable mutations that would/could cancel it and cause us to die out.
See where that goes? It takes Amanda’s pseudoargument and turns it inside out. Details are left for the student.
Regards,
Ric
“Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/4 @ 4:23 pm #
N. Brian, as long as we don’t become that which we despise in the process.”
Warren, I’m a classical liberal, a believer in freedom and responsibility.
I am not, and never could be a dick like thor, or an idiotic, incoherant asshole like alfie.
BTW, did you know that BOTH of them, at one time or another, have been banned from pw?
Why don’t you lecture them on property rights?
Oh, and I doubt very much that either parsnip or thor will reproduce.
Think of it as evolution in action.
Social constructs are biologically driven.
I think it might be worth a drive to Texas just to hang out on Ric Lockes porch.
I can’t help thinking that Marcotte’s principled aversion to reproducing arises from the fact that there isn’t much call for reproducing that.
I’ll bring the beer and chips.
I’ll repeat here a recommendation I’ve had occasion to make before on this subject. Read The Red Queen by Matt Ridley. It’s subtitled “Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature”. A better overview of this extremely complex subject you couldn’t wish for.
Comment by Ric Locke on 2/4 @ 4:40 pm #
IIRC it was in “The Imperial Animal” by Tiger and Fox that postulated an intelligent ant with whole sheathes of behavior originating in the current ant colony survival strategies.
he assumptions you are making are identical to the ones that lead to “Intelligent Designâ€Â
Darwin says we are accidents of the go of randomness, Ric.
He made no mention of the Supreme Monkey what put us together just as we are theory.
I believe in randomness, I don’t believe in the ape.
Some people just want to watch the world burn.
It’s pretty clear you believe in randomness.
When you start deciding what is right for me and my house, or when you decide what is right for the house of another individual not yourself, you have become the enemy of freedom.
 What I’m saying is, just make sure that you do not mistake your own ideas of freedom for licentiousness in others. That’s the common mistake of most people these days. The slippery slope is “The
government oughta do something!” and “There oughta be a law!” …when the behaviors and freedoms in question have offered no harm to the life and liberties of others or to the social contract. Both left and right have made this mistake, that is, only their own ideas and concepts of what is right for others is interpreted as ‘freedom.’ Interestinglyenough, many self-described classical liberals and libertarians also make this mistake.
Oh…
The name “Warren” is commonly defined as ‘protecting friend’ although I can’t say anything about the etymology of the name or its definition.
The name “Bonesteel” was first Anglicised as “Bonnesteel” in 1715 at Three Forts in what is now the state of New York, five years after the Palatine Immigration (third ship, IIRC). The original spelling was “Bohnenstiehl” or “Bohnenstiehlen.” (My many times great-grandmam was from Prussia) The closest transliteration I can find of the ancient meaning is “The Green Lady’s Castle,” or “The Green Lady’s Dagger.” (stiehl = ‘Hard, sharp, unbreakable, cliff, fortress’ – context can be either cliff/fortress or dagger.) Perhaps, originally from a part of an ancient Royal bodyguard or royal military force or castle militia. The etymology, if I’m not mistaken, harkens back to an ancient linguistic group from north of the Caucus.
My middle name is “Roy,” but that’s another story…
Know your past. Know yourself.
..and when I have people making statements about my name, I know I’m getting my point across. Happens every time…
Indeed, Dan.
People usually hear “Intelligent” Design in Darwin’s theory, but all he was saying was humans just got lucky in the casino of life.
“I believe in randomness, ”
yes you’re a random progg opinion generator
The shorter version of what parsnip is trying to say is, “I am irretrievably stupid. Someone please help me.”
People hear no such teleological thing in Darwin, snippy. You’re pretty oddly impressed with what you feel to be your intellectual superiority to the cartoons in your head.
As to whether those are intelligently designed, we have no means of testing directly. But the consensus seems “probably not”.
You’re like a cartoon of Jughead walking down the road with a cartoon of Jughead in a thought bubble imagining himself as a cross between Cary Grant and Albert Einstein.
Funny how alphie can’t defend his *snort* argument out past the one sentence line.
But he does know the word “Darwin” and figures that’s enough to fake it.
Is your point “I’m an insufferable boob”? Because that’s the vibe I’m getting from your comments.
Just sayin’…
“Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/4 @ 5:19 pm #
When you start deciding what is right for me and my house, or when you decide what is right for the house of another individual not yourself, you have become the enemy of freedom.”
Sure, Warren.
Whatever.
we have no means of testing directly
And we could say the same thing about the source of the “urge” to have children, Dan.
Why bother setting up all the long-winded straw men?
Warren, did you have saved somewhere to copy and paste, cause I’d have hated you to waste your time typing all that out.
parsnip is living proof that there is no such thing as “intelligent design”.
Warren, if it helps, think of it as N.O’Brain’s way of trying to wreak a sort of fleeting vengeance of words on thor and parsnip rather than a logical fallacy. Paybacks are a bitch, and so forth.
“that saved somewhere”
but if it did not exist, we wouldn’t be here; we would have been eaten by dire wolves directly out of the womb.
Or we would have been strangled by our parents in the crib. If kids weren’t so cute (high forehead, big eyes, same in all mammals), and the sight of cute didn’t trigger an instinct to protect and nurture, their parents would kill them because they are so blasted relentless with their demands.
I also love the name “dire wolf.” Best name in nature, after Crotalus horridus.
Or that God has one wicked sense of humor.
I dunno, in line with my grandmother, it takes all kinds to make this crazy world.
Emphasis on the “crazy” in this instance.
My point is, I think you’re barking (long-windedly) up the wrong philosophical tree, Warren.
Interesting question: which came first, the form of “cute” or the impulse to find that particular form “cute”?
Coevolved, terminated with Braatz
and manga, generally, which was all killed off after spawning Kate.
alphie is recalculating its next move. It was certain that the mere invocation of the talismanic word “Darwin” would be enough to send posters into hooting rages and start flinging Genesis at him, the erudite Man of Science and Reason.
This does not compute.
Deep Blue it is not.
and she wants this precisely because it puts her in charge of deciding for everyone else what is right and what is wrong, socially speaking
Precisely. When you abandon absolute, objective ethical standards then all that is left is what you can force on others with power. The left has their ideology and want to enforce that on everyone else. It doesn’t matter if there’s no rational or external basis for these ideas, it doesn’t even matter if it passes their own tests of pragmatism or is consistent with their other statements. It is what they desire, and they want the power to make it so.
This what happens when facts and truth become subject to opinion and desired outcome. Myndy has her desired outcome, and she will force everything to meet that predeteremined conclusion.
It means nothing, really, as she has very little effect on anything. But if she had power to compel others to act as if her conclusions were true? There is the potential for damage. Winston Smith may claim that 2+2=5, but that does not make it so.
And reality has a habit of giving short-shrift to such conceits.
Thanks, Jim.
Is this thread headed into a forest populated by gavagai? Are we going to have a need to call for indeterminate translators?
“#Comment by Dan Collins on 2/4 @ 5:47 pm #
Deep Blue it is not.”
Shallow Cerise
Darwin says we are accidents of the go of randomness, Ric.
The genetic combinations and mutations are random, tuberhead, whether or not they are effective is not.
For instance, have you ever notice how when babies are learning to walk, if they lose their balance they immediately bend at the waist and fall on their butts? All of them do this, everytime, because the ones back in the cave who didn’t broke their fucking heads and didn’t live to reproduce. Nothing random about the results.
It’s sort of like saying that hunger and eating have nothing to do with biological needs since we keep eating even when we do not need food, and can starve ourselves to death through pure will power.
We can f*ck when we aren’t fertile, and do, and we can chose not to reproduce at all, ending our genetic line.
If reproduction is cultural, so is the desire to eat.
Really, B Moe?
What good is a long beak if there’s no place that it gives a bird an advantage?
Or, say, a mutation that gave an animal living in a desert walrus-like blubber?
If kids weren’t so cute (high forehead, big eyes, same in all mammals)
I don’t think it is an accident that humans find most baby animals cute. Humans have been the dominate predator on the planet for awhile now, babies that trigger the cuteness gene in us have a much higher chance of survival.
What good is a long beak if there’s no place that it gives a bird an advantage?
Is that a trick question? Just how fucking stupid are you?
Your problem, parsnip, is one Dawkins frequently addresses: you cannot comprehend the magnitude of time involved in the process.
Well, that, and you continue to pontificate without having bothered to understand Amanda’s argument, and my counter.
Dicentra: In Re rattlesnakes.
I remember on one overnight campout in Kensington Metro Park I sent the kids to get some wood for the fire that morning. They came back claiming they killed a rattlesnake. Though dubious about their claims, I went with them to their ‘kill’.
There weren’t many parts left, they had obliterated it good, but based on the scraps of skin, it sure looked like some poor, dumb massasauga rattler had come across a group of 11-12 year old boys and girls.
Poor, dumb critter – it didn’t have a chance. Out for sun, or its breakfast chipmunk, it got stoned, sticked, and hatcheted to death. And then stoned, sticked, and hatcheted to pieces.
The process may be long, Jeff, but an animal born with a random change has to make a go of it from the getgo (find a mate) or else the random change doesn’t enter the gene-pool.
Which comes from an intellect, Techie, so certain of it’s exclusive objectivity and enlightenment that the evident fact it runs entirely on a rampant bias Inspired By Actual Events!™ never factors. If snotty ever leaves its intellectual enclave is doubtful: Progressive!
What the fuck do you think we have been saying?
Consider my anecdote in the line of atavistic responses to a threat that came out in the young. In a zoo or a nature center they would not have done that – being nice suburban kids and all that – but in the woods, even in the tamed woods of a metropark? They reverted to kind.
“In short, she wants to have it both ways  and she wants this precisely because it puts her in charge of deciding for everyone else what is right and what is wrong, socially speaking.â€Â
So, folks, what is it about what Amanda has done…that is so very different than what most of you actually do?
What is so different about what Parship or Thor has done than what you do in return?
Like Amanda, however foolish or wrong she is in her premises and assertions on this one issue, I see no difference in actual practice between her and yourselves.
You seek to force others, if only through simplistic, immature and childish derision, to conform to your ideology…while bitching and moaning when the hammer is in someone else’s hands. in the meantime, the folks who’ve had a go at me stil haven’t addressed the question, which, admittedly, requires a fair bit of uncomfortable self-examination. Something which, for many of you, is required by your own spiritual avatars and belief systems…yet you refuse to examine your own assumptions, but deride others for theirs. Where is all of that vaunted intellectual honesty? …from either the left, the center or the right?
Force, Warren?
Refuse to examine, Warren?
Rather, you promote rational equivalency, Warren.
…yet you refuse to examine your own assumptions….
You need to maybe stop typing for awhile and read some more, Warren, because that is what we have been doing this entire thread, dude.
Whatever. Me I seek to force others, if only through simplistic, immature and childish derision, to conform to my ideology … while bitching and moaning when the hammer is in someone else’s hands. This is because I have super-great ideologies what are way more better than soul-crushing dirty socialist ideologies. So put that in your pipe and smoke it Mr. Bonesteel.
You’re like a cartoon of Jughead walking down the road with a cartoon of Jughead in a thought bubble imagining himself as a cross between Cary Grant and Albert Einstein.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe.
I would say you need to tone down the worldly, pompous, bullshit pontifications and get specific once in awhile, Warren, which of my assumptions and positions in this thread do you take issue with? Specifically, please.
The one where you use words to conflict Amanda, B Moe.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe
BTW, pipe is also French slang for a blowjob. Maybe a cartoon of Matt Damon walking down the road with a cartoon of Matt Damon in a thought bubble imagining himself as Michel Foucault getting a hummer from René Magritte.
Jeff,
for what it is worth, this post is why I continue to read PW. Here sophists and charlatans are dealt with… more honorably than they deserve; more honorable than they even “wet dream” of extending their ideological opponents. Darleen, Dan, et al, all do admirable work, but when you sight-in, you deliver a blow that I can internalize, and reconstitute as additional rebuttal to pseudo-intelligent, but in reality, useful-idiot protestation of the self-absorbed progressives.
At a biological level, overwhelming differential success at out-reproducing every competitor gene through many generations is a start I guess. After that, we’ll see. The ground conditions favoring a new mutation may well have changed in the passing time. Or a better gene combination may have arisen. As to the future, our best guesses are mostly confined to looking at the past.
But must we conclude a priori that the same will hold true with political ideas? I’m not asserting, I just don’t know. I like the idea that if it works, people will keep on using it. Thing is with the political, most people don’t seem to have a clue what it was to begin with, as opposed to, for instance, being stuck with a favorable physical condition in their bodies that they have little knowledge of and even less control over.
One funny anecdote from that campout.
The guys had a large tent to themselves and the girls their own. Late at night-early in the morning I was woken. I was in seperate pup tent (I snore – loudly). I looked out. The fire was going good and there were the girls in a semi-circle near it (most of them with their arms folded) and the boys were taking turns jumping over the fire. The boys were the ones that woke me up.
I tried to go back to sleep, but they were too loud for me to do that, so I got up, went over, and told them to go to bed. I sat by that fire for about an hour before I went back to bed.
Hence my sending a group out to get wood, as they had burned up what I had judged would be enough to cook breakfast (it was August and finding any deadfall next to the campsite was a hopeless task). They burned up the wood acting like boys trying to impress girls? The girls went along with it? Then they could both find some more wood (here’re a couple of hatchets and a bowsaw).
Then came the late Mr. Rattlesnake.
I’m simply saying that many of you have confused the effect for the cause. What is the cause of Amanda’s false assumptions…and are you responding to one false assumption with the same, exact false assumption? ‘Cause, you know…that’s pretty much what yer doin’. Walks like a duck and all that…
You despise sophistry in others, yet rely upon it to support your own positions.
At heart, however wrong her premises or misplaced her desire to somehow ‘free’ others, what is the difference between yourselves and Amanda? The subject that she addressed? Or her desire to ‘help’ others do the right thing by controlling them? How is that desire on her part any different than what most of you have displayed, here, as well as in your private, social and professional lives?
I have yet to see a logiccal, rational, refutation of my question or of my statements in support of that question. You’ve been relying upon the same emotional response and hot button words and phrases that you claim to despise in Thor and in other liberals and progressives. While you do the same things they do, in the exact same way, what is the difference between you? They are not you? Is that it?
The most honest response has been outright, but unsupported denials.
Just sayin’.
When I talk about lookin’ inna mirror, examining yourselves, I’m not talkin’ about checking for a piece of lettuce in your teeth. Ya know that, doncha? ‘Cause I’m startin’ to wonder about ya…
I’ve been caught in the mental image of pre-language caveman daddy using pantomime, trying to tell his daughter not to have sex or she’ll get pregnant. Hardly trying to “demean and oppress women”, I think.
l
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 2/4 @ 6:18 pm #
HAHAHAHAHAAAAA!!!!!
When you abandon absolute, objective ethical standards then all that is left is what you can force on others with power.
“There is no good and evil, only power, and those too weak to seek it.”  Quirrelmort
For instance, have you ever notice how when babies are learning to walk, if they lose their balance they immediately bend at the waist and fall on their butts?
According to my mother (but denied by my aunts), I began to walk at six months. I hadn’t learned to crawl and I definitely hadn’t learned to fall properly. I had bruises on my forehead until I ratcheted it back and did the crawl thing until I was 10 months old, at which time I had the falling thing down. So to speak.
So, folks, what is it about what Amanda has done… that is so very different than what most of you actually do?
Amanda wants to change these alleged “social constructs” because they are oppressive and evil. She fails to recognize the limitations of human behavior, such as the fact that we do in fact possess biological urges.
Amanda and her ilk are determined to make that change through any means possible, such as legislation, propaganda, and social penalties.
We, on the other hand, do not believe that human nature can be changed (short of divine intervention) and that any attempt to do so is fascistic, oppressive, and six flavors of foolish. We would repeal those laws, neutralize the propaganda, and live and let live in general. If Amanda and her ilk don’t want to reproduce, not one of us will try to persuade her to do otherwise.
That both sides ridicule each other is irrelevant. We have different assumptions, different goals, and different methods. Judge us by those criteria, not by the trash talk.
I think the whole point of this thread was to prove righties have no self-awareness whatsoever, Warren.
It’s not polite to point that out.
Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/4 @ 6:32 pm #
Warren, I suggest you go back and read Jeff’s post.
For starters.
oh..it ain’t ‘moral equivalency’ on my part when I point out the fact that you bitchin’ about someone else deciding what is right for others is kinda wrong-headed, when you’re doing the exact same thing. ‘Cause, you know, all I got togo by is what you been sayin’, here. ‘for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh,’ and all. If yer sayin’ what ya mean and mean what ya say, then many of you are sayin’ and doin’ the exact same thing she did.
I’m just sayin’ that both of ya – Amanda and many of you – are bein’ jugheads.
Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 6:39 pm #
And I think the whole point of this thread was to prove that alpo is a retarded marmoset.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
“Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/4 @ 6:40 pm #
oh..it ain’t ‘moral equivalency’ on my part when I point out the fact that you bitchin’ about someone else deciding what is right for others is kinda wrong-headed, when you’re doing the exact same thing.”
No, he’s not.
You missed that.
“Or, say, a mutation that gave an animal living in a desert walrus-like blubber?”
Hey quit dissing O!’s Porkulus bill!!!!
You’re just not worth the effort, Bonesteel. Do with that as you will.
It’s ‘rational equivalency’, WB. Terms, man.
What is the cause of Amanda’s false assumptions?
How in Sam Hill should I know? Are you talking about Amanda’s psychological underpinnings, which would lead her to embrace bad ideas? I can’t read Amanda’s mind, nor do I know what her life has been like.
Are you talking about the philosophical underpinnings, having been enunciated by other thinkers before her? I don’t know what Amanda has or had not read.
Are you talking about the historicity of her values? What?
As for “sophistry,” please provide a definition and three examples from this thread. I get the feeling that the word does not mean what you think it means.
I understand practicing what you preach is so…limiting, No Brain.
That’s why your superstitions make it so easy to be “forgiven.”
The old Nurture vs. Nature argument has always been a major source of academic gobbledygook, and always will be it looks like.
Which ones, snotty?
The old Nurture vs. Nature argument has always been a major source of academic gobbledygook, and always will be it looks like.
They always leave Free Will out of the equation, which is where they run into trouble. They also seem to think that it’s either/or instead of “all of the above.”
What are the cause(s) of Amanda’s false assumptions?
Perhaps you should ask Amanda, or look into the particular ideology she has.
Me? I have little desire to control any other people besides me.
Try reading a bit Warren and you will find that the commenters here are willing to debate any argument. But they are not willing to debate any argument that ‘twists their words to make a trap for fools’.
What do you actually have to say to the content of the post other than to make delphic utterances about the style and manners of the commenters? Care to make an actual stand? State something clearly?
You’ve got many words at your grasp – let us see you put them together in a particular way that says ‘I think this’. I know I have done that, and have embellished with little anaecdotal examples to demonstrate that boys and girls act differently, and that humans will as a group act in a certain way.
The boys wanted the audience of girls – to impress the girls – and did something dangerous.
The boys and girls saw a threat in the wild and eliminated it.
Is that a social construct, or is that an atavistic behavior?
Discuss.
Jeez. All we want is life beyond the thunderdome, Warren.
I left out the ‘rational’ part of the equivalence thingy, ’cause some of you folks aren’t being rational. The issue is moral equivalence…on your parts. …as in ‘irresponsible choice.’
I seldom agree with Parsnip, but what he just said about preaching and practicing it is very apt. ‘Course, if he and Thor would engage in the same…you could have a rational and responsible conversation about freeedom and liberty and where this nation is going to go from here.
But, no…you wish to divide yourselves from yourselves…using the same lack of responsibility and rationality. The primary narrative from left, right and center is about control. It is about deciding what is right for others. It isn’t about freedom or liberty.
Bullshit, Warren.
The boys wanted the audience of girls – to impress the girls.
Notice that in the animal kingdom, especially among birds and fish, the males develop bright colors and nifty displays to impress the females. Males showing off for females is older than dirt.
I seldom agree with Parsnip, but what he just said about preaching and practicing it is very apt.
What practice are you observing, Warren? Can you see me through your monitor? Can you see me committing horrible acts of hypocrisy? Because everything you read on a blog is words, and words fall into the category of “preaching.”
The primary narrative from left, right and center is about control. It is about deciding what is right for others. It isn’t about freedom or liberty.
Then you don’t understand that this blog leans libertarian, which is about minimizing government interference in personal lives.
Again, please define “sophistry” and provide three examples from this thread so that we can better answer your arguments. So far, you’re just blurting out random accusations.
And dicentra – that is why most of the entertaining youtube videos begin with some boy saying “Hey, I want to try somethin'”.
The girls that do that stuff? See the myth of Atalanta.
So Warren, you think that Amanda telling people how to live, and those here telling people that they should live how they want to live is the same thing? I mean, we’re both telling them what to do!
“But, no…you wish to divide yourselves from yourselves…using the same lack of responsibility and rationality. The primary narrative from left, right and center is about control. It is about deciding what is right for others. It isn’t about freedom or liberty.”
Oy vey.
Another idiot.
@#256. I pretty much did that yesterday. As for your response, it’s prettymuch the same shit I got yesterday from, folks like yerself. Nothing but logical fallacies, ad homs (creative as some of them were) and empty sophistry in return. Indeed, all you’ve offered is another attack, not a refutation.
Left or right, if it doesn’t fit your internalized narratives, it doesn’t count.
Warren is missing that whole “120,000,000 dead caused by leftist ideology” thing.
Posts like this are why I still read PW.
No refutation yet appears… “Bullshit” is not a refutation.
This
is just a test
You want total freedom and liberty Warren?
I suggest you first read Robinson Crusoe to see how much fun it is to be totally liberated from other humans.
Humans have always been social creatures, and having society means that some liberty must be given up in order to be in the group. But which liberties and when?
That question is the debate. Feel free to join that debate anytime.
Give it a break, Bonesteel.
Warren,
I am not sure anyone knows what to refute, as it is hard to tell what exactly you are arguing.
Just a thought.
One potential complicating factor in the argument about the origination of sexuality in humans is that the psyche tends to muck things up abit more in our species than in other animals.
In most species you have a few variables: hormones, genetic coding, and environmental influences. In humans, the psyche adds at least several dozen other unique variables leading to a wider array of sexual expression and deviation as psychological impulse conflict with or reinforce otherwise normal sexual expression. So comparisons with animal species, while potentially instructive in limited doses, is akin to comparing an abacus to a computer. I prefer rigorous anthropology to rigorous biology in explaining human behavior for this reason.
P.S. Warren, I didn’t order the weak tu quoque. Can you please return it to the kitchen and bring me back something more substantial?
I think, and I’m just making a stab here, that Warren believes that people who believe in freedom, personal responsibility, free markets and limited government are exactly the same as murderous fascist thugs.
I know, it sounds crazy, but there you go.
I don’t think it is an accident that humans find most baby animals cute.
Maybe we were made that way on purpose. Oops, sorry to challenge your preconceptions :)
There’s an old saying, have one child and you’re an environmentalist, have three and you believe in genetics.
I come down on the “nature” side of the argument.
Warren, I wasn’t on the other thread. If you’re so convinced that we’re all full of it, perhaps you could find a better way to pass the time.
Hadlowe:
Not an attack. That humans can resist biological impulses does not mean that biological impulses – natural impulses – are not there. Just that humans are a very special animal.
When humans are not actively resisting, though, they act in certain ways that are more instinctual, biological, natural.
Like the boys trying to impress the girls; like both eliminating a threat.
He appears to be arguing against calling the bullshitters on their bullshit, P.J., although I’m damned if I know why.
Well, Mikey,
Why do modern societies place such a low value on humans willing to “eliminate a threat” real or imagined?
I imagine there was a time when the willingness to commit violence in the name of the tribe was highly prized.
Evolution?
Best opening line I’ve read in awhile:
“Some time ago, Amanda Marcotte grew tired of writing about anal sex.”
Again:
The boys wanted the audience of girls – to impress the girls – and did something dangerous.
The boys and girls saw a threat in the wild and eliminated it.
Is that a social construct, or is that an atavistic behavior?
That I think is the heart of the discussion – what has been socially constructed, and what is atavistic?
I think a lot of behavior has an atavistic foundation, that has been embellished upon because humans are not just animals, but can choose to act or not act.
Now, what does that have to do with the subject of this comment?
Discuss.
Why do
modern societieseffete elites place such a low value on humans willing to “eliminate a threat,” real or imagined?They don’t, sweetie. It’s just that effete elites have a different idea of what constitutes a threat than heartlanders do.
Effete elites consider Rush Limbaugh and permitting waterboarding a threat. Heartlanders think that terrorists and socialism are threats.
Because we have means other than violence to eliminate threats, we use them. They often have a lower cost to one’s self than violence, which often puts you at bodily risk to carry out.
But if you think for one minute that our modern society is “evolved,” you’re in for a surprise. Only our technology is “evolved.” The rest of what we’re up to is just a repeat of the past.
Nihil novum sub sole, duud.
…the fact that you bitchin’ about someone else deciding what is right for others is kinda wrong-headed, when you’re doing the exact same thing.
We aren’t talking about what is right for others, Warren, we are talking about what is right and wrong. This is a discussion trying to deal rationally with specifics of human behavior, biology and evolution, as opposed to treating it as some sort of malleable belief system. I have no idea what the fuck you are talking about, and frankly I don’t think you do either.
That’s ironic, dicentra, considering the “heartlanders” have nothing of value for the terrorists to blow up, so they are the Americans safest from any threats, real or imagined.
As far as considering “socialism” a threat, that sure is odd because nobody is suckling on the federal government’s teats harder than the Americans who live in the “heartland.”
I don’t think anyone outside of crackerville considers Rush Limabaugh a “threat,” they just see the fat arsed pill popping draft dodger as proof that the “conservative” movement in this country is just a collection of hypocrites.
I’m not denying the strength of biological urges. I just think that oversimplification of the gene drive leads to extreme conclusions. (cf Richard Dawkins who takes a serviceable hypothesis and simplifies it to the point that human organisms are little more than taxi-cabs for genetic booty calls.) Mostly, the point I was trying to make was that good human behavior study has to take into account the driving nature of natural impulses, but it must also take into account the havoc that learned behavior wreaks on the biology.
On the one hand you have purely psychological explanations of human behavior, and on the other you have purely biological explanations. Neither one can reliably predict behavior patterns. History can reliably predict behavior in the majority of cases. Thus my preference for anthropology.
The problem I have with Amanda’s diagnosis of male/female relations is that it prefers the purely psychological explanation of sexuality. The danger of resisting her conclusion is to react and say that psychology accounts for (next to) nothing.
Instead I’d phrase it that psychology accounts for the messiness in human sexuality. For example, psychology can account for the abnormal population demographic shifts of western europe and Japan (something that history predicts as well.) The idea that affluent and peaceful populations should do anything but explode goes against every evolutionary model in existence.
When I first noticed Warren commenting around here, he was fairly innocuous. Only in the past few days has he started speaking his mind, as it were. At that point I found him annoying, but waited to see if he would clean up his act a bit, perhaps get down off the incredibly high horse he decided to mount. It didn’t happen. Instead, he has managed to brand himself a major tool, and isn’t even interested in backpedaling.
He isn’t saying much, and what he is saying when you can suss it out is fairly pedestrian. He should not be surprised that few wish to engage, as he isn’t bringing anything new to the table. If he were willing to learn the blog language around here he might have a better time of it, but since he has not shown that kind of interest, he should not be surprised when people respond with insults, as that is all he deserves.
He has also exhausted the Strawman Supply Corporation™, LLC. At this point he isn’t much more than more fodder for the Hammer™.
Just my opinion, of course. He might be worth engaging, but I doubt it.
“As far as considering “socialism†a threat, that sure is odd because nobody is suckling on the federal government’s teats harder than the Americans”
AFSCME, NEA, and brain dead government employees.
Civility NOW!!!
Word up, Bonesteel, you covert narrative terrorist. It was the message in your poem, I picked it there.
Yeah, this two-story stack of shit for brains chases around who, me, and repeatedly tells me to lick his son’s combat boots. Does he chase around Ric Locke? No, just me and a few others. Only people he disagrees with about politics, you know, the end all spinning wheel in his little Habitrail world. I make it clear to him my family tree is full of fallen soldiers, my Dad is a wounded soldier, hell, I have a brother-in-law who, and though we ain’t tight and who I only see a few times a year, is gearing up for his fifth tour. None of that matters to the myopic psychotic, I of course simply need to suck his son’s booties.
When I finally tell the Philly fagblower to stick his son and his son’s combat boots straight up his fat deranged ass, you know what he does, he keeps stalking and spewing the same suck-my-boy’s-boots shit. His zombie mode unbroken by anything or anyone. Unfazed by the reality that’s he’s become as useless here as a broken yard tool.
They take whatever sympathetic icon they hold dear and they use it as a weapon to stab their political opponents with. They want dual victim status, double sympathy, because now it’s them and their icon under attack! “My boy’s in harms way! thor called him a fag! Look at me now, I can’t stop crying tears of revenge!”
And then there’s the collective right ego that was so wounded by a few deranged Berkeley protesters that they now have taken an oath to be just like them! So disturbing is Rachel Corrie’s protest picture that they angrily raise up a picture of her and set it on fire! (Well, she’s sort’a a special kind’a fun, bad example maybe since it’s not often a slow moving bulldozer flattens a hysteric)
It seems to me these victims decry those others they believe are claiming their deserved slice of victimhood. To Darleen African slaves ain’t shit compared to those hard times of yesteryear that her Irish immigrants survived. The epiphany of which is the tale of her daddze-wadzee sitting in a classroom filled with high society blacks back when he was a destitute kid growing up in the suburban ghettos of hard scrabble Los Angeles, the last American frontier of easy money in those days. Which begs the question how does one come to believe that there would be any boastful pride to be harvested from claiming one was fiscally disadvantaged to a minority that was denied the opportunity to earn a fuckin’ dime? Wouldn’t that make you the laziest fuckin’ white person ever born in the era of blessed whiteness? It’s a ravine of victimhood rarely driven into, like plantation owners claiming to be victimized by the slaves since the slaves got to wear all the chains and leg irons while they suffered the horror of hoop-skirts and fitted three-piece suits! I mean, if you can sell that, more power to ya, but I’m creeped out by the audience of believers, frankly. The rising tides of circular victimization lacks more than a few drops of honesty in my book.
Suffering reactionary rage when vis-a-vis opposing raging loons all set atop a see-saw of victimization will not forward a cause.
Peace.
I like Warren. He’s new and different and interesting. He uses words differently than other people and boy can he strike a tone or what.
“As far as considering “socialism†a threat, that sure is odd because nobody is suckling on the federal government’s teats harder than the Americansâ€Â
O!’s friend Tony Rezko.
Shorter Marcotte: “I hate my father!”
i think that thor is mistaken in his snake oil.
You’re a much kinder person than I, hf.
(Well, she’s sort’a a special kind’a fun, bad example maybe since it’s not often a slow moving bulldozer flattens a hysteric)
Also I like thor. But I like parenthetical thor better.
bonesteel is part of the steel robber barons like haliburtonsteel and cheney or something.
Warren, the problem is that there are actions you and your house can take, or fail to take, that make you and your house a threat to me and my house.
Example: You and your house dam up a stream that is on your property. So is the lake that results. If you don’t do it right, and your dam breaks, the resultant flood is going to wash me and my house away. Do I have the right to demand before the flood that you build your dam to certain standards? I think I do. Sorry, but arguing that you and your house can do as you please fails in the face of the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Something about Warren’s style reminds me of an anarchist messageboard/cult I like to look in on from time to time, for the schadenfreude.
I’m curious to know exactly what your political opinions are, Warren.
Just a short announcement:
I am going to bed, so I am off-line for the night.
I will not and do not respond to questions or comments from commenters here who do not extend the same courtesy to others. If you are incapable or unwilling to extend that courtesy to others, then I will not extend it to you.
With that said – good-night all.
“A zygote is a gamete’s way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
I’m curious to know exactly what your political opinions are, Warren.
Near as I can tell, he thinks we all ought to like, do something and stuff. Except he can make it sound a lot more profound.
I was trying to figure out what was going on here but now I’m thinking I’ll just watch Lost.
Good call.
Comment by thor on 2/4 @ 7:50 pm #
Kinda thin-skinned there, hor, you piece of human garbage.
You’re still not good enough to lick the sand from my sons combat boots.
Ah! Warren is engaging in equivalency in order to shut down discussion.
The only thing I get from Warren is some sort of atomistic libertarian anarchism.
If that makes no sense, neither does he.
That’s ironic, dicentra, considering the “heartlanders†have nothing of value for the terrorists to blow up
Truly ignorant.
Terrorists don’t have to blow anything up of value. They only have to create fear, confusion, or instability with terror…a zshopping center will do.
You have forgotten the point of your first few credit hours at Patrice Lamumba U.
Asshole.
I’m thinking I’ll just watch Lost.
I’m gonna watch that PJTV thinger Mr. Reynolds just linked. Oh jeez. It’s like 20 minutes. We’ll see how far I get.
“You have forgotten the point of your first few credit hours at Patrice Lamumba U.”
thor’s alma mater!
I’m getting the anarchist vibe as well. Anarchists that I’ve seen online tend to be rather pompous and antagonistic towards people who aren’t as radical as themselves.
“I’m gonna watch that PJTV”
they’re phonies. where’s the pjs? come on rodeo drive have some nice pjs? does glenn wear pjs?
i have my pom poms go PLU
TheGeezer,
There was a time when soldiers were at the very top of American society.
Now, they are lower-middle class at best.
And I don’t think anything will change that arc.
Evolution at work.
I see no Warren here.
“Comment by parsnip on 2/4 @ 8:28 pm #
TheGeezer,
There was a time when soldiers were at the very top of American society.
Now, they are lower-middle class at best.”
Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you’d had enough oxygen at birth?
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.”
Yea you got to be Tom Asshole to make money in the government.
There was a time when soldiers were at the very top of American society.
Now its community organizers, right tuber?
Evolution at work.
lol.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be Chuck Rangel to make money in the government.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be Bill and Hill Clinton to make money in the government.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be Barney Fwrank to make money in the government.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be Michelle Obama to make money in the government.
Comment by Noah Nehm on 2/4 @ 7:52 pm #
“Shorter Marcotte: “I hate my father!â€Â
Win.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be Chris Dodd to make money in the government.
Actually, B Moe, it’s wimpy geeks like Bill Gates and Steven Jobs who are at the top of American society now.
Just like Darwin said, the skills that determine which species will live and which will fade change over time.
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
Yea you got to be William Jefferson D-LA to make money in the government.
Plumber Guy is a natural, but I don’t know why I should really care what he says in particular. He’s very well-spoken though, if a bit simple. Would I personally have gone with that tie? No. Hey. Glenn used the word ramifying. He takes a bit of getting used to if you’ve never heard him do this sort of thing which I haven’t. He has a certain muppetlike charm. Michelle won me over almost instantly by bagging on David Brooks. Glenn comes across as being way more Team R than he does on his blog. Unless you count him bagging on the feckless Soros-papertrained Rs in the Senate. I’ve made it half way. Michelle wants to see unified opposition among Rs in the Senate. That’s quixotic I think. Michael Steele. What the hell is he doing? We don’t know. Steele is sort of not very promising so far is the consensus. Plumber Guy wants to see unified opposition among Rs in the Senate too. No one has mentioned McCain. Cause he’s an irrelevant loser is why is my guess. Three more minutes. Ok. Done. Mr. Reynolds should lose the red paneling thingies.
“Just like Darwin said, the skills that determine which species will live and which will fade change over time.”
where you idiot root vegetable?
Thank you for your service for this blog. I’ve got my own pjs and dont have to see others.
“Social Construct” is just another way to say “New Soviet Man” without anyone smelling the post-modern vodka on your breath. Marcotte is an otherwise unemployed–and unemployable–social construction worker. You know; like the guy in “Village People”.
Hi Router. Me I would very much like to read something in verse this evening. I would like that very much really.
*router* I mean… Also I enjoyed this comment from a person on the left who is feeling sad.
followed by…
Somebody’s bringing sexy back:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/150/393318640_ae0bc153fe_o.jpg
I’ve caught bonesteel!
ok last one…
That was his emphasis. The Obama Youth are getting restless looks like. This is not good.
verse?
My Page Name
Warren, too, has parent issues. Is he over at Mandy’s place telling her she is forbidden to tell other people to live? Naw, he’s here saying we ‘are the same’ as St. Amanda.
Warren got stuck at that stage of childhood when the child hears the parent say “It is not a good idea to do [x] because …” and screams “YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO!”
oh. nevermind. There’s this one named buttons. pdbuttons. He was here and then he went away and I miss him. He wrote in verse and he was brilliant and funny and brilliant and funny are not as easy to come by these days. I think that’s nice about Zinni getting shafted. Reminds me that Wesley Clark is sort of MIA.
Let me be the odd one out and agree with Crazy Mandy. In the 99% of human history that didn’t include birth control, having sex and having babies was pretty much the same thing. Having babies may or may not be a natural urge as long as sexy time is.
verse?
I’m very depressed today. I really don’t get it. I’ve been defending Obama from the worst attacks on this site, but I’m wavering mightily.
Fanaticism does have a tipping point, to be sure. If the smallest fact finds a chink in the True Believer’s armor, he’s likely to vehemently reject his former beliefs.
The trick is to keep him from falling under the sway of the next movement that come along, so that, e.g., the disillusioned Communist doesn’t become a rabid Nazi.
Mr. Hoffer wrote about that at some length.
I’m thinking that Barky’s sell-by date has passed already, and that he’s headed for that special markdown shelf in the back of the store, the one with all the dented cans and opened packages of batteries.
Having babies may or may not be a natural urge as long as sexy time is.
I disagree. Raising a baby is hard and expensive.
If most people didn’t want to have ’em, they wouldn’t bother.
Unfortunately, it’s not the case that you need contraception avoid that task. There’s a long and bloody history of infanticide to tell us what happens when having babies becomes too hard and expensive.
Hey O!
oh. Thank you for the inspirational and empowering message.
We all are possessed
we all are damned
we all are crucified
we all are broken
by attractive technology
by economics of time
by quality of life
and the philosophy of war
http://www.rathergood.com/laibach
I wish I could buy stock in the word disillusioned.
You might trying to short illusioned. I think it would be a mistake, though.
What if she intended to be a dirty bitch?
And I apolgize to women everywhere for using a term that is way too often bandied about, but as my wife says–she would not tolerate me using the “c” word, but there are lots of c’s out there.
I’m curious what it is that I’ve done in my post that makes me the “same” as Marcotte. Used complete sentences?
You need to be more clear, Warren.
Parsnip isn’t even engaging in the same debate; and thor, well, he’s just here to see how he can creatively introduce the word “snatch” into the mix.
And why not, aren’t we all?
Arrrrrgh! I’ve swyved the seven c’s, lad.
disillusioned:
http://mapaghimagsik.comicgenesis.com/d/20090129.html
“Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”
“I think so Brain, but if they called them Sad Meals kids wouldn’t buy
them.”
“That old saw about “to understand all is to forgive all” is a lot of tripe. Some things, the more you understand them, the more you loathe them.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
“All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can  and must  be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly  and no doubt will keep on trying.”
-Robert A. Heinlein
That part’s confusing. Cause successfully reconceptualizing the “social construct†that tricks homosexuals into thinking that their behavior is biologically driven would put them on a procreative path. So it’s not the same as wanting to have it both ways. It just means she’s really really confused.
Well, we seem to have fixed that bit.
A conversation between former teen idols Leif Garrett and Barack Hussein Obama would be excellent.
I’d love to see her in a cage match with Sarah Palin: Barracuda v Snapper!
No. It would suggest, rather, that they can be free of their gayness merely by changing the construct — something that, for Amanda, is uncomfortably close to what some churches believe.
The point being that Marcotte can’t claim social construct over biology for women and biology over social construct for homosexuals. In doing so she’d be trying to have it both ways.
Now, I suppose it’s possible she believes homosexuality is a social construct — one that should be embraced — but if that’s the case, she opens herself up to the suggestion that it is equally as valid to try to “change” the “construct” of homosexuality, as a society, as it is to change the “construct” of woman.
When I grow up, I want to be Jubal Harshaw.
Harshaw’s the kind of rum cove who’d make Marcotte’s head explode. He;d get a kick out of that I’m sure.
Got it. It’s that changing any construct to where people aren’t victims is anathema what’s key I guess. Victims are useful and they make great pets.
Unless they are Jews. Then, hide the silverware.
Or, if it feels good, believe it. Amen.
S Love
My Page Name
Just snatch my grand illusions of open calamitous quims. Gush front and bottom-toward the blood-flamed skin-zippered beaver, gashing, muffling the sounds of excreting folds. You’ll never pap the smears of snappering vajajays!
“Now, they are lower-middle class at best.â€Â
I think I saw GEN Petraeus thumbing through the foodstamp regs a while ago. I met GEN Odierno at the thrift shop – we were both trying to find some towels for under $2. We did give a buck for the Command Sergeant Major who was rattling a cup, looking for spare change.
Red Alert: Nancy Pelosi Cracks a Funny!…
Let’s see if it’s as funny to you as it is to me. Via the magic of screen capturing:
Ummm…
If this was something she was saving for her schtick at whatever Washingtonian-insider dinner this was, then I could probably sum up the response with…
They are panting, awaiting the call, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”.
verses?
It’s quiet enough to go 4-4-4 I think.
LTC John
Hey, congratulations!
sorry just a pro judeo/christ/magna carta/washington type
#374. Thanks. A nice little set of orders in my in-box today.
I think I shall go and celebrate a bit.
okay. That’s good. I just miss buttons. And psycho. Oh. Congratulations LTC John! I’m glad Spies said something cause that went right past me.
How many Generals + Admirals are there in the whole U.S. military, John?
8-900?
Comment by Eric on 2/4 @ 9:08 pm
Having babies may or may not be a natural urge as long as sexy time is.
Good lord. Try saying that to a any single woman between 38 and 42 y/o who is standing alone in her granite-countertop, professional chef-grade appliances, flatscreen-tv-in-refrigerator, kitchen in the 2200 square foot loft condo, now willing to trade it for a 1200 sq ft tract home in boringburbs as long as she had a loving hubby on his way home from work and a bun in the oven.
You have NO IDEA how overwhelming … a deep down to the marrow ache … it can be for a woman who wants to have a child.
No, not all women will experience it, but for those of us who do or have, it has nothing to do with just wanting to have sex.
Otherwise, there would be no professional but single women who succumb to the bio-clock and decide to have a child sans husband.
LTC John
Congrats, sir!
Congrats, LTC John!
Hooray for LTC John!
Hey router, I posted a rilke in French t’other day. Might you have a good english translation of it? La Biche? Or maybe better, an English of
Congratulations on you promotion Colonel…
Here’s to you Sir; best of luck at your new command…
COngrats, John. Now you can go off and join the hundred thousand or so other LTCs at the pub, in celebration.
Dunno where I got that number. Prolly the same place where parsnip gets his. I hear there’s a special this week.
Silly right wing fanatic, check before you snipe:
(a) Limitations. – The number of general officers on active duty
in the Army, Air Force, and Marine Corps, and the number of flag
officers on active duty in the Navy, may not exceed the number
specified for the armed force concerned as follows:
(1) For the Army, 302.
(2) For the Navy, 216.
(3) For the Air Force, 279.
(4) For the Marine Corps, 80.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/10/subtitles/a/parts/ii/chapters/32/sections/section_526.html
root vegetable:
Gotta love bold ignorance. From the very first formulation, Darwin identified two drivers in the process of evolution: natural selection (be better at not dying) and sexual selection (pimp those tail feathers, homebird!)
Darwin had nothing to say about whatever weird traits any one species might lock in on in determining what is sexy, but that sexiness (and the byproduct of, well, reproducing) is a built in driver for evolution.
But going back to Iowahawk’s point, if Amanda is opting out, hard to see how that isn’t a win/win in terms of bettering the species.
Congratulations, LTC John!
Oh and parsnip wants to play the “shorter” game, I have a “shorter” parsnip:
Parsnip: “Destruct!”
Fuck me… a lot of you are as blinded by your own assumptions and preconceptions as Amanda is. You examine the foundations of her social construct w/o having examined your own. Most of what was offered in refutation of her little missive was insult, not rational and logical argument. Which is what you do with most of the folks here who trounce all over your sacred cows and who gore your favorite ox. That’s a far cry from the Age of Reason, which is the very foundation of Classical Liberalism.
You often praise one another for your perspicuity, maturity and wisdom.
What many of you have offered instead is founded in the blindness of ennui and covered by a thick blanket of nihilism. But…like your ideological opponents, you consider yourselves to be capital “P” patriots and lovers of freedom and of liberty.
…and the question has yet to be answered:
“In short, she wants to have it both ways  and she wants this precisely because it puts her in charge of deciding for everyone else what is right and what is wrong, socially speaking.”
Where is the difference in what you do and say compared to what she and her ideological colleagues have done?
That isn’t a difficult question for a group that is so intelligent, so well-informed, so educated and well-read, and so experienced and wise and all-knowing.
The question has been re-phrased and expounded upon and the relevant passage quoted again and again.
…yet you cannot understand the question???
…and you’ve even gone so far as to insult my parentage, and the rest of you allowed and encouraged and cheered such insults…while the question, itself remains beyond the grasp of your understanding?
Pfft.
Okay, Warren, attempting to engage with you because I figure you’re at least redeemable and not an intentional troll:
Describe to me, in a comment of no more than–oh–three sentences where this post prescribes behavior for anyone’s ideological opponent. Not the comment thread, the post itself. I’ll be flabbergasted if you come up with something substantial–because there’s nothing prescriptive at all in what Jeff’s written. It’s entirely observational and explanatory; no one is being told to do anything. The “proper action” after having read this post is left up to the readers to decide, not spelled out. Yes, there is an undertone of distaste for the kind of floppy argumentation Marcotte, et. al., engage in and perhaps that could be seen as social pressure against another group, but that isn’t the point of the original post.
The above paragraph is of course written assuming that your objections somehow stem from the content of the original post. If that is not in fact the case and you’re responding to the INTERNET ARGUMENT going on in the comments section…whoo, where do I begin.
Perhaps by letting you explain to me why you’re attempting to offer some kind of validity–as legitimate “alternative opinions”–to what parsnipthor have to say. From where I and 95% of the commenter population are standing, the only reason those two and other trolls of their stripe speak up is to engage in oft-personal, obscene, and uncomfortable sniping that’s written mostly for the shock and/or intellectual masturbatory value. So why is telling them to GTFO somehow on the same level as Marcotte being passionately interested in how to control everyone’s reproductive destiny?
Also, and this is not germane to this thread but to the previous one that spawned it:
I think what pars&co. are failing to understand about why pro-life “godbotherers” often don’t support women popping out eight babies at once (despite support for healthy reproduction being a tenant of many religious beliefs) is that a pro-life stance derives from concerns about the lives to come. These same concerns also inform the idea that having fourteen children as a single parent is a REALLY BAD IDEA for those fourteen lives in your care.
Children are an unquestionable good to this mindset, but being unable to support those children–or bringing them into life in a situation that is a risk to their health, safety, and sanity–should override the simple desire to reproduce. (This even has biological roots for the Darwinists keeping track at home: the reason a woman’s body shuts down her reproductive cycle when it thinks she’s “starving” [i.e., her body fat drops below a certain threshold] is because it KNOWS she doesn’t have the resources to support a pregnancy, let alone raise a child; similarly for why lower mammals with eat/reabsorb/whatever their babies during times of environmental stress.) It’s wrong to terminate a life prematurely for arbitrary reasons, even if that life is still just a ball of cells; but at the same time, it’s wrong to look at one’s own life and decide to bring a ball of cells on-board when that ball of cells is going to grow up in a situation of misery, deprivation, and pain. (Granted, between these two values there IS a realm of ethical grayness and difficult decisions. But that’s why my stance–and, I think, that of many others who hold these ideals–is that we’ll do our best when the unexpected comes along based on the situation at hand.)
It’s possible to be pro-reproduction without cheering on people who have IRRESPONSIBLY HUGE FAMILIES. And I don’t mean irresponsible to Gaia or your carbon footprint or the GNP or wtfever; I mean irresponsible to the human lives you’ve already got or are planning on bringing into your care. Granted, I also think the Catholic stance on contraception and not having sex for fun(!) is way too strict and ripe for causing problems of this nature; that’s another discussion for another time, however.
Perhaps I’ve been brainwashed, though. Several of my friends through grade->high school were kids from a ten-kid family, and my fraternal grandmother’s side of the family is wildly fecund in the typical Mormon fashion–but these were people who also had the means and the will to raise all those kids adequately, so take what you may from that.
LTC John: Congratulations! If I ever get to the Chicago area I’ll salute you and buy you a drink.
Uh huh. Methinks you’re making a mistake, here. Probably you’re not going to see it, though.
Congrats to LTC John.
Most of what was offered in refutation of her little missive was insult, not rational and logical argument.
Right back at you, dickhead. And that wasn’t an insult.
Thanks everyone. Slart – No one need worry that I will eventually strain the number of Generals. I spent too long as an enlisted guy. I’d be very lucky to make COL before having my time expire.
Cripes – I have to get the registration fixed….sigh.
Warren, you’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything.
Would you like to give an example of this sameness you decry? That might be a bit more helpful than merely declaring its existence.
Congratulations, LTC!
Congrats LTC John!
“Comment by Bod on 2/4 @ 9:49 pm #
When I grow up, I want to be Jubal Harshaw.”
Jubal is one of my heroes.
Congratulations, LTC John!
WTG!
Fuck me… a lot of you are as blinded by your own assumptions and preconceptions as Amanda is.
What assumptions and preconceptions? Give examples.
You examine the foundations of her social construct w/o having examined your own.
How do you presume that? Because I (I won’t speak for anyone else here, as I’ve been a lurker) don’t come to the same conclusions as yourself?
Most of what was offered in refutation of her little missive was insult, not rational and logical argument. Which is what you do with most of the folks here who trounce all over your sacred cows and who gore your favorite ox. That’s a far cry from the Age of Reason, which is the very foundation of Classical Liberalism.
If you mean that Miss Marcotte was being mocked, get over it. If you feel that thor and parsnip were treated unfairly, then I think you need to hang around more. They are NOT here to debate, but to mentally do something that rhymes. thor’s simply a man-child, and parsnip is a twit.
Comment by Warren Bonesteel on 2/5 @ 3:14 am #
Fuck me…
Not bloodly likely.
Oh, and since this thread has wandered far afield: Excellent smackdown of Ms. Marcotte, Darleen.
[…] one that says having babies is natural and normal. What am I missing? (H/Ts to David Thompson and Protein Wisdom…check out those links, especially the second, for a much lengthier explanation of this theory […]
Methinks Warren agrees with Mandy generally, but isn’t foolish enough to even try to defend her position – instead, good offense being good defense and all, Warren has elected to attack Mandy’s critics.
Also, does anyone else think that High School must have been quite difficult for Ms. Marcotte?
Alec:
Yes. I expect it was a very painful and awkward time – and middle school was likely the same.
Just another lurker’s opinion.
Jeff hit the nail on the head when he stated “for control of the narrative they require to empower themselves politically.â€Â
Be it feminist, homosexuals, transsexuals, illegal immigrants, abortion advocates – whatever; they feel it is their moral right to have my obligated approval as validation of their supposed right to their stated belief. While any given person may have the right to ask; I do not have the obligation to give my approval. I do not have an obligation to give my agreement with or my understanding of whatever cause or supposed right such people feel they have.
People such as Ms. Marcotte can not get my obligated approval so they try to push a belief on me “for control of the narrative they require to empower themselves politically.†to force my validation.
Warren:
IMHO; The regular commenter’s here are not pushing back with their beliefs in the way you posit, they are merely stating in their own words that they also feel no obligation to approve of things they don’t believe in and that they do not like the ploys the left try to use to foist their beliefs on them.
“Yes. I expect it was a very painful and awkward time – and middle school was likely the same.”
I figure she was in a four year existential funk – like Waiting for Godot, except the two voices in her head were expecting boobs to arrive in vain.
Oh yes, and congrats LTC John! ♥ However belated these congrats are.
LTC John! God bless you, and all who sail in you.
Still nothing concrete from Warren. I’m sadly disappointed.
Oh, and just so I don’t go too far afield in being accommodating here, let me point out that Warren has, for whatever reasons, decided to pull my quote out of context: the wanting to have it both ways observation has a clear referent, and is being addressed on the basis of the way her arguments are formulated (as I pointed out to hf upthread).
It is not clear at all how what I’ve written is at all the same. In fact, my post details the need for logical coherence and consistency, and decries the kind of “academic” cant that tries to argue backward from a conclusion in ways that forces it to embrace logic it has in other arguments quite forcefully eschewed.
If Warren means that I am somehow like Marcotte in that I want people to follow my line of thinking — consistent logic — and so are as desirous of telling people what they should think as she is, well, then what he is arguing against is a common ground for inquiry, making his suggestion that it is we who are somehow nihilists doubly ironic and doubly ridiculous.
Then again, because he hasn’t said much (“you need to think outside the box,” “you need to examine your own assumptions”) — and has offered no concrete examples of what it is he finds so problematic — I’m forced to conclude that he is either incapable of making the argument, or else he’s gotten away with these kinds of pseudo-calls to arms before.
Pity, that.
There’ll be no living with him after this. Now he’ll be orderin’ majors around.
You have NO IDEA how overwhelming … a deep down to the marrow ache … it can be for a woman who wants to have a child.
And can’t.
I’ve seen marriages dissolve because of it.
[…] within many of our lifetimes a baby may be delivered through a woman’s vagina. It would probably amount to rape, but there you are. Posted by Dan Collins @ 7:16 pm | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: […]
Congratulations, LTC John!
Oh, and snip? Your nonsense about soldiers losing social status is confusing cause and effect. It used to be considered an obligation of the upper class to serve King and Country. Now it isn’t; many feel no obligation to Country at all. This is not a good thing.
Snorting adderall….
Adderall xr headache….