| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"" |
| Date: |
16 Jul 2005 03:11:45 PM |
| Object: |
Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
Our Peculiar Institution: the New Slavery
By Anthony Esolen
On a wintry day in Boston stood a man "devoid of genius, and with
only an ordinary education," eulogizing an insurrectionist hanged
hundreds of miles away. He had too much integrity and too little
imagination to compromise the single great principle of his life.
"What is it," he cried to the crowds gathered to hear others
exhorted to sacrifice, "what is it that God requires of the South to
remove every root of bitterness, to allay every fear, to fill her
borders with prosperity? But one simple act of justice, without
violence and convulsion, without danger and hazard." Without hazard
to the speaker and his audience-but let him continue. "It is this:
'Undo the heavy burdens, break every yoke, and let the oppressed go
free!' Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and the Lord
shall answer. Thou shalt cry, and he shall say: 'Here I am.'"
The hanged man was John Brown, and the sanguine speaker was the
abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. It was December 2, 1859, little
more than a year before the evil of slavery began to exact its full and
terrible price in blood. "How simple and how glorious!" he
exclaimed, in his pride and his uncharity not stopping to consider that
little in the life of man is simple or glorious. He was right about the
nation's duty. Narrow and unsympathetic people can be right, as broad
and affable people can be wrong. But he did not care to see how deeply
the institution of slavery had gripped its roots into the soil of
Southern culture, for all who lived there, rich and poor, men and women
and children, slave owners and overseers, and poor sharecroppers and
slaves. To end slavery was to end a way of life.
It is six years later, after 700,000 men have died, with thousands
more, including women and children, sent to early graves by hunger and
disease and grief. A better man whose judgment had been wrong stands
before the Georgia legislature to recommend healing and patience. He
summons no metaphors about new mornings, but speaks frankly of "these
evils upon us-the absence of law; the want of protection and security
of person and property, without which civilization cannot advance."
He insists that such evils cannot be removed unless the men of the
South accept their loss in war and acknowledge that its judgment
against slavery is decisive.
As for the blacks, how many of the ensuing evils of American life would
have been averted had men possessed his charity! "Ample and full
protection should be secured to them, so that they may stand equal
before the law, in the possession and enjoyment of all rights of
person, liberty, and property." This was no abstract political
formula, for he recalled all the particulars of a way of life swept
aside. "Many considerations," said he of the duty to assist the
blacks, "claim this at your hands. Among these may be stated their
fidelity in time past. They cultivated your fields, ministered to your
personal wants and comforts, nursed and reared your children; and even
in the hour of danger and peril they were, in the main, true to you and
yours. To them we owe a debt of gratitude, as well as kindness."
The speaker was Alexander Hamilton Stephens, a man so admirably honest
that the people of the South elected him-though he had opposed
secession and had worked to avert the war-vice president of the
Confederacy. Stephens was wrong about slavery and Garrison was right,
but Stephens knew by experience what Garrison could not or would not
know. Since evil mimics good, or mistakes a lesser good for a greater
good, an evil institution does offer-though in degraded form and only
for a time-things that man considers good. Even slavery did so.
I am not merely talking about wealth. What about love of freedom?
Southerners compared themselves to the ancient Greeks: It was not
accidental, they argued, that they who saw slaves every day should
cherish their freedom all the more. Was the parallel just? Was the myth
of the chivalric, aristocratic South only trumpery to dress up a *****?
I raise these questions because we have long been living with an
institution as defining as, and more pervasive than, slavery was in the
Old South. It is free sex, the gift of the sexual revolution. It has
gripped its roots into our soil-into its soil, because that is what
our land now is. Its fruit has been crushed and eaten and strewn
broadside. How (and when, and with whom, and whether) we fall in love,
marry, and raise children; work and play; make and break laws; study
and teach; honor and scorn the dead; dress and undress-what has the
sexual revolution not changed?
It was the owning of slaves by the elites that first made the South a
culture of slavery, but that culture of slavery soon became far more
than the owning of slaves by the elites. When Christians first yielded
to contraception-to the tawdry technology of barrier and
poison-they made the West a culture of death, but that culture of
death soon implied far more than contraception. Free sex has defined
our way of life. And as did slavery in the Old South, free sex has
conferred some things people consider good. Not only pornographers and
abortionists but ordinary people profit every day from the anarchy. We
all profit.
Let us be forthright. Some good things can be had by means that are not
evil: The South might have been richer had it not relied on cotton and
slaves. In such cases it may be possible to retain the good while
changing the means. Yet it may not be practicable. Those whom slavery
had made wealthy were not necessarily those who were going to be
wealthy without slavery. Many stood to lose their wealth, and some lost
all they had. Other things are only speciously good. Such may have been
the chivalric overlay on the slaveholding terror-so glittering in its
gentility that as late as Gone with the Wind millions of Americans were
still unwilling to see beyond it. Our own culture of death glitters,
too, shining with personal autonomy and all the breathtaking and
soul-flattening "freedom" it asserts. Boys and girls can backpack
around the world together-sweeter than any julep, that. And then some
good things sometimes cannot be had without resort to evil means. If
so, they must be given up. If slaveholding meant that the Southerner
grew up with a keen sense of freedom, and if that rare gift must be
lost with the fall of slavery, then lost it must be. If in the culture
of death a youth grows up with the exhilarating prospect of unlimited
possibilities, and if that prospect must be narrowed with the fall of
the culture of death, then narrowed it must be. Let the Garrisons among
us seal envelopes. We must face the truth.
And we must face our enemies. If they are monsters, we are their
cousins. It was comforting for abolitionists to shudder at the fetter
and the lash, and to sip tea while Catholic churches in Philadelphia
burned. It was comforting for the owners of northern sweatshops to
shudder at the forced labor of cotton-gathering in the malarial fields
of Georgia. I do not equate anti-Catholicism or poverty wages with
slavery. I say that then as now there was plenty of blindness and
corruption to go around, blindness and corruption that shared a family
resemblance.
Not every slaveholder enjoyed holding slaves. Many did not; they held
them with bad consciences and often, as they lay dying, freed them. So
did Washington, so did Jefferson. Such men would never say they were
pro-slavery. They opposed emancipation, at least in their own
lifetimes, sensing (or wishing to sense) that the slaves might be worse
off afterward, and understanding that the high culture of the
plantation, resting on leisure wrung from the sweat of other men's
brows, could not then endure. John Calhoun and Jefferson Davis did not,
I think, like slavery. They liked the culture that slavery produced.
And it is wrong to say, as the gloating Henry Ward Beecher said while
the Union flag was hoisted over Fort Sumter, that "slavery itself was
cared for only as an instrument of power or of excitement." If only
Satan showed his spiky tail whenever he tempted us! But as slavery
mingled with and exacerbated the worst propensities of
man-hardheartedness, cruelty, lust for power-so its evil was
mitigated and partly concealed by the human relations that grew up
between white and black, by affection and kindness, by common
celebration and common mourning.
So with us now. Most feminists do not like abortion. In an abortion
clinic even Hillary Clinton might avert her eyes. They sense (or wish
to sense) that the lives of such children would be miserable, and they
understand that in any case there is a plantation to run. Only brutes
enjoy blood and death. But delicacy is often a vice, and many a
primrose path leads to the everlasting bonfire. Let us take our
enemies' word: They do not like abortion. They might not like
adultery, might be nervous still about fornication and sodomy. But they
like the culture that abortion undergirds. They like the culture of the
sexual revolution. They are "pro-choice"-the phrase is more than
a dodge. They extol personal autonomy as the summum bonum. In that
enterprise we have all lent a hand.
It is dangerous not to see this. Men may champion abortion "rights"
to enjoy with greater impunity the male fantasy of careless sex-a
fornicatory Big Rock Candy Mountain. But the evil is also mitigated and
partly hidden by male gallantry, the laudable desire to protect women.
And men and women both see abortion as a fail-safe, lest an unwanted
pregnancy topple that false god, personal autonomy, at whose altar the
whole nation worships. No argument here: Day-care centers are full, and
not with orphans and the poor.
What if the Southerners freed their slaves? What must they change?
Rather, what could remain unchanged? What if we Christian rebels could
overthrow the sexual revolution? What must we change? Rather, what
could remain unchanged? Show me which minute of a typical day for a
man, a woman, or a child would be left untouched by the rebellion.
Here we could talk about almost anything. We suffer the evils brought
by (and we enjoy the worldly benefits of) fornication, adultery,
contraception, sodomy, abortion, and divorce. It would take a hefty
book to begin to treat any of these adequately. Let me rather follow
one thread of one issue for a while to suggest to the reader how far we
have gone wrong and how many things, especially the simple details of
daily life, we must correct.
Suppose that we sexual slaves have been freed. Suppose the technology
and bureaucracy of our enslavement have been dismantled: no Pill, no
abortion, no government machine to supplant the father and undermine
the family. All at once, if only to survive or to protect our property,
we must take the Sixth Commandment seriously. I don't suppose all
people would always follow it, but those who broke it would know they
were doing evil.
What then? You are sending your daughter far away to a secular college,
to live in a coed dormitory. Not now, no sir! But you've raised your
daughter well and trust her. My argument exactly. How much of your
trust is negligence? How much do you rely unconsciously on the
fail-safes of the Pill, abortion, and welfare? And if you are correct
about your own daughter, what example do you set for others whose
daughters are not so strong? Moral customs are curbs not for saints but
for sinners. Doesn't your action make it easier for other people's
daughters-or sons!-to be seduced? Isn't the modern college
constructed for fornication? And by what presumption do you trust that
youth and beauty, not to mention loneliness, idle time, opportunity,
and the natural yearning to be loved, will prove too weak for your
religious maxims? David who danced before the Ark fell to temptation,
but your daughter will not? Even if your daughter will not, others
will, and by the millions.
Harsh reasoning, but I see no flaw. If we really believed that
fornication was a deadly sin, or-more likely, alas-that it was a
scandal to bear a child out of wedlock, then we would not put young men
and women in situations that make fornication practically inevitable.
We wouldn't do it, as we wouldn't allow children to play with
canisters of nitroglycerine. We do it because we have persuaded
ourselves that there's no nitroglycerine in those canisters, or that
nitro doesn't really explode, or that somebody else will clean up the
debris.
So sleeping arrangements at colleges would change-and men's and
women's dorms would not be next door, and visitors would be
monitored. I do not imply that everyone would then be virtuous. But
with such an arrangement even an indifferent Christian might keep his
virginity, whereas now it is nearly impossible for any but the most
committed Christian to do so, nor is there any great reason to suppose
that he will, either.
Is this all? Would you trust your children to architecture and
regulations? What good are rules if people do not assume them as part
of themselves? You will have to make people want to be chaste. Some you
will persuade by the transcendent beauty of chastity; others, by the
more immediate and effective power of fear. Some will be attracted not
by chastity but by the perks conferred by the appearance of chastity;
just as the shy youth nowadays wants to be a hypocrite in vice, wishing
that others see the unchastity he has not yet managed to perform. And
wouldn't you have to work on each sex separately to stave off
disaster? And you wouldn't begin during orientation week for
freshmen, would you?
Freeing the slaves is not so painless after all. Recall one of the
virtues twisted by our culture of sexual freedom: male gallantry. It
was a nasty trick of the Prince of this world to take a genuine virtue,
rob it of substance, and make it serve the very vice against which it
had once fought. In times past, a gallant man would not offer an
indecent proposal to the woman he loved. Now, he gallantly defends her
right not only to receive his indecent proposals but to make them
herself! Both parties "gain": He gains in sexual irresponsibility,
and she gains in no longer needing to be protected by him. To put it
more crassly, he gains sex and she gains the freedom of movement to win
power, money, prestige-the usual. Such men and women have always
existed, but they used to have names. Now they-we-are Legion.
If the Sixth Commandment was to be discarded, male gallantry had to be
perverted; if it is to be restored, male gallantry must be straightened
out. Nowadays men "protect" women by defending their shared right
to whoredom. They must instead learn, even as boys, that their job is
to protect women by, well, protecting them, first from bodily harm but
also from the moral harm of scandal, slander, and disgrace. You have to
make it part of a man's virility to want that any woman he loves not
be seduced; and to this end he will agree to customs that ensure that
all the other women in the world stand a chance of not being seduced
either.
How is this to be brought about? They are wrong who say that in the old
days nobody talked about sex to children. They didn't talk about
sexual intercourse: about that you could learn, without permanent harm,
by hanging around the barnyard or catching stray dogs in actu or
listening to a shiftless cousin. No diagrams were necessary, much less
a prissy schoolmarm with prostheses. The rest they were intelligent
enough to learn when the time required it. But about sex-about being
a man or a woman-they talked all the time, and we fools never talk
about it at all. If, then, we want men to protect women and not seduce
them (and don't suggest they should treat women as if they were as
sexless as rocks or stumps), we must raise boys who treat girls
protectively; we must talk about manhood to boys. And if we want women
who demand protection from men, and who are unwilling to be seduced by
men, let alone to seduce the men themselves, we must raise girls who
accept protection from boys; we must talk about womanhood to girls. It
cannot happen by wishing. It surely will never happen by supposing that
boys and girls are neuters.
Few abolitionists were up to the task of ensuring that the former
slaves would enjoy the rights and exercise the responsibilities of full
citizenship. In this sense, to say "We wish the slaves were all
free" is like saying "We wish people would be chaste." It is
empty, unless you are willing to say what you will do, or give up, to
make it a reality. To return to the boys and girls: We would have to
reject many of our assumptions regarding child-rearing and education.
In the old days, a boy was to "protect" a girl not because he was
bigger; a faster-maturing girl may be, for a time, stronger than a boy
of the same age; or a girl from a tall, broad-shouldered family may be
stronger than a boy from a short, slight family. People knew that
better than we, since their daily manual labor proved it. A boy was to
protect a girl because he was a boy, destined to become a man, and that
was that. The vagaries of individual difference did not matter, and
many a girl graciously and justly accepted a boy's offer to carry
what she could more easily have carried herself.
A simple question, then: How is the boy to learn to protect women if
all his life he is placed with girls indiscriminately? If he may slide
tackle a girl on a soccer field, how is it that a few years later he
may not slide tackle her on another field? If the girl consents to
tackling in the one case, why may she not consent in the other? Anybody
who thinks that rough contact with a girl-bumping, tackling,
wrestling, jostling, grappling-is not sexually interesting for a boy
is an idiot. Parents used to deal equitably by allowing for tomboyism
in some girls while they were young, provided it were restrained and
temporary. This wisdom protected the hopes of the great majority of
girls who had no desire to climb cliffs or chop trees or wrestle pigs,
nor any desire to marry men who would expect it of them.
Another question: How is the boy to learn to protect women if all his
life he is told that women need no protecting? There is a society in
which women need no protection from and by men: Heaven. Short of that,
women, smaller and slighter than men and vulnerable while they are
pregnant or caring for infants, do need protection, nor is there
anything undignified about it. But to parade before the boy an
interminable roll call of women astronauts and police and soldiers and
athletes, all to enlighten him about the muscularity of women, is to
teach him that women are just as he is and that he need pay them no
deference. He has a taste for combat; so must they. He will gladly take
a punch, if only he lands a punch or two of his own; so must they. He
loves to walk, really or figuratively, along a cliff's edge, to tempt
death; so must they. Any claim on his protection he would gallantly
scorn as beneath the dignity of the claimant. Let him see such
"strong" women while he is growing up, let them define for him what
it is to be a woman-cast contempt on "mere" motherhood and then
try to tell him, at age 16, that he may not take Mary to the cliff
because Mary is a girl and deserves better from him. Why, he will
answer that he is giving Mary the best he has.
I leave to the reader to continue the speculation. We are now a society
structured by fornication, adultery, contraception, sodomy, abortion,
and divorce. If we took seriously the indissolubility of marriage, for
everybody and not just for the saintly and the heroic, would we build
suburbs for anonymity? Would married men and women associate casually?
Would we call it "progressive" if a man and woman, colleagues at
work, each married, made a habit of going to lunch together? Would
parents allow children to choose their spouses without their least
approval? Would we treat a divorce as if it were an appendectomy? Would
we neglect to assign to the divorced a just and salutary
blame-salutary for those who might be tempted to the same evil? Would
we encourage unmarried men and women to live alone? Would we permit the
series of emotional and sexual train wrecks once called "dating"
and now called, in the brute mechanical lingo of our day, "hooking
up"? Would we foster among young girls and boys the lie that
independence is a good thing? Or that it is even possible?
The abolitionists had advantages we lack: They did not own or trade in
slaves, and their North was militarily and economically stronger than
the South. We who wish to reinstate the Sixth Commandment are a small
minority; we do not control the ordonnance, namely the schools, the
newspapers, and the television. Worst of all, we have cut corners, have
compromised and have-like Henry Clay-been celebrated for our
compromises, have looked the other way, have enjoyed the parties on the
veranda, though ourselves have seldom wielded the lash. We have bought
no slaves (or only one or two, to tide us over a rough time), but we
shop at the slaveholder's commissary. The abolitionists were at least
prepared for the Civil War. John Brown wanted to start it. Another
civil war is brewing in our nation, to be fought between those who
believe in the sanctity of sex and those who do not. It will shed far
less blood than the first and will therefore be much longer and more
bitter. It must decide our fate as a civilization.
But we are not ready. We like too much the perks of our culture. There
is no North yet in this war. We half-rebels against God lack the heart
to fight. For all we are concerned, the Mason-Dixon line might as well
be the Arctic Circle. William Lloyd Garrison, tone-deaf to so much in
human life, yet heard the cry of the black man in his suffering far
away. We hear no cries of those gone before us to hotter climes and
crueler lashes than the black man ever knew. No wonder. Lots of hubbub
on our broad highway.
Author's note: Garrison's speech was "On the Death of John
Brown," delivered in Tremont Temple, Boston, December 2, 1859.
Beecher's was "Raising the Flag over Fort Sumter," delivered at
that site on April 14, 1865. Stephens's was "The Future of the
South," delivered before the Legislature of Georgia, February 22,
1866.
Anthony Esolen is professor of English at Providence College and a
contributing editor for Touchstone magazine. He has recently translated
and edited Dante's Divine Comedy, in three volumes, for Modern
Library (Random House).
http://www.crisismagazine.com/september2004/feature2.htm
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| User: "Josef Balluch" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
16 Jul 2005 03:53:37 PM |
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<wordsoftruth114@email.com> wrote in message
news:1121544705.429498.188360@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Our Peculiar Institution: the New Slavery
By Anthony Esolen
Subtitle: How to be "Free" by being a Slave to an Ideology
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 12:18:32 AM |
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Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
It is also like slavery to pressure girls into having sex in order to
compete with other girls for boys and attention, when they would rather
wait until they can handle it.
But comparing the existence of contraception, or the lack of laws to
prosecute cohabitation, and much else of our society's withdrawal from
enforcing religious norms of sexual conduct, to slavery simply does not
make much sense to me.
The proper place for sex is in a serious loving relationship. That it
has to be an absolutely indissoluble relationship, open to procreation,
however, is a religious notion, which it is inadmissible to impose on
everyone.
John Savard
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| User: "Ray Fischer" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
26 Jul 2005 12:10:53 AM |
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<jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Therefore being forced to serve the needs of a fetus is like freedom,
because a woman really is free when she is forced to obey.
--
Ray Fischer
rfischer@sonic.net
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| User: "Gio Medici" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 08:36:08 AM |
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wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
How do you know that? Weds. night Bible study? Maybe the unborn just
hop into another body, just like getting a different seat at the
theatre.
It is also like slavery to pressure girls into having sex in order to
compete with other girls for boys and attention, when they would rather
wait until they can handle it.
The root cause is that their parents had kids that they couldn't
nurture effectively.
The proper place for sex is in a serious loving relationship. That it
has to be an absolutely indissoluble relationship, open to procreation,
however, is a religious notion, which it is inadmissible to impose on
everyone.
John Savard
Some parrots mate for life. Animism, I suppose, provides the moral
backbone.
Gio
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| User: "Bill" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 12:16:56 PM |
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People of all ages have sex because of their inborn natural sex drive or sex
hunger. This is not some evil but the result of evolutionary drive to
replicate and multiply.
We don't need rules to inhibit sex any more than to inhibit eating and
breathing. We just need education and the availability of contraceptives and
prophylactics.
"Gio Medici" <giomedici@sumware.com> wrote in message
news:kfh4e15kikhoqs6q40mg73q2ptan5svon4@4ax.com...
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
How do you know that? Weds. night Bible study? Maybe the unborn just
hop into another body, just like getting a different seat at the
theatre.
It is also like slavery to pressure girls into having sex in order to
compete with other girls for boys and attention, when they would rather
wait until they can handle it.
The root cause is that their parents had kids that they couldn't
nurture effectively.
The proper place for sex is in a serious loving relationship. That it
has to be an absolutely indissoluble relationship, open to procreation,
however, is a religious notion, which it is inadmissible to impose on
everyone.
John Savard
Some parrots mate for life. Animism, I suppose, provides the moral
backbone.
Gio
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Revolution: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 03:21:15 AM |
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wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Nope. Slavery was the involuntary servitude of already-born human
beings. Your Dred Scott-esque equivocation is summarily dismissed.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
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| User: "Del" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 03:00:34 AM |
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wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Zygotes, embryos and (for the most part) fetuses have
no rights. They never have. They aren't people.
It is also like slavery to pressure girls into having sex in order to
compete with other girls for boys and attention, when they would rather
wait until they can handle it.
Pressure is slavery. It means someone owns you for your
entire life and can buy or sell you at will. Wait a minute,
it isn't anything like slavery at all.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 03:50:47 AM |
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Del wrote:
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Zygotes, embryos and (for the most part) fetuses have
no rights. They never have. They aren't people.
Since the religious love the slippery slope idea so much, I can help
them along:
If we give zygotes, embryos and fetuses rights, what's next? Giving
dogs rights?
It is also like slavery to pressure girls into having sex in order to
compete with other girls for boys and attention, when they would rather
wait until they can handle it.
Pressure is slavery. It means someone owns you for your
entire life and can buy or sell you at will. Wait a minute,
it isn't anything like slavery at all.
Right. It's an ill-conceived analogy that disintergrates when a little
thought is applied.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
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| User: "Fritzz" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 02:27:38 PM |
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"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HxnEe.760$vY2.225@trnddc09...
Del wrote:
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Zygotes, embryos and (for the most part) fetuses have
no rights. They never have. They aren't people.
Since the religious love the slippery slope idea so much, I can help them
along:
If we give zygotes, embryos and fetuses rights, what's next? Giving dogs
rights?
Dogs aren't human; however, human zygotes, embryos & fetuses are. There is
a difference.
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| User: "Del" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 02:09:33 AM |
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Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HxnEe.760$vY2.225@trnddc09...
Del wrote:
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Zygotes, embryos and (for the most part) fetuses have
no rights. They never have. They aren't people.
Since the religious love the slippery slope idea so much, I can help them
along:
If we give zygotes, embryos and fetuses rights, what's next? Giving dogs
rights?
Dogs aren't human; however, human zygotes, embryos & fetuses are. There is
a difference.
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 08:03:01 AM |
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On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 08:02:31 AM |
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duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "Fritzz" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 09:37:04 PM |
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"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09...
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Human hair is dead. You have to go to the roots to find the life.
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| User: "Del" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 01:27:11 PM |
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Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09...
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Human hair is dead. You have to go to the roots to find the life.
This isn't about the word "hair" it is about the word
"human." "Human" can refer to a person or it can refer
to something that isn't a person. This confussion can
be eliminated (if that is something you want to do) by
simply prefacing "human" with "A" when you are
referring to a person. For example"
A sperm cell is "human" but it is not "a human" (being).
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 02:37:29 AM |
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Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09...
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Human hair is dead. You have to go to the roots to find the life.
So it's just a location change? (10 points if you get my reference.)
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 06:11:54 AM |
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On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:37:29 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09...
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Human hair is dead. You have to go to the roots to find the life.
So it's just a location change? (10 points if you get my reference.)
I'll give you 20 points when you figure out you've just been had.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 06:40:06 PM |
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duke wrote:
On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 07:37:29 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09...
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Human hair is dead. You have to go to the roots to find the life.
So it's just a location change? (10 points if you get my reference.)
I'll give you 20 points when you figure out you've just been had.
And I'll give you 50 points when you figure out you've been had.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "Del" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 01:15:51 PM |
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DanielSan wrote:
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
Well it is human, but not life, technically. On the other
hand, a sperm cell definitely is human life as is the
egg cell.
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| User: "•€R.L.Measures" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 09:54:52 AM |
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In article <HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09>, DanielSan
<daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
• Well, sort of. The hair we see topside is not living.
--
€ R.L.Measures, 805-386-3734, www.somis.org
remove _ from e-mail adr
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 03:30:57 PM |
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•€R.L.Measures wrote:
In article <HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09>, DanielSan
<daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
• Well, sort of. The hair we see topside is not living.
Yup. But hair below the surface of the scalp is living human life.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "•€R.L.Measures" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 06:15:57 PM |
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In article <5USEe.4676$6M3.4615@trnddc03>, DanielSan
<daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
•€R.L.Measures wrote:
In article <HjMEe.2554$vY2.2480@trnddc09>, DanielSan
<daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
duke wrote:
On 24 Jul 2005 00:09:33 -0700, "Del" <jfacts@earthlink.net> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
• Well, sort of. The hair we see topside is not living.
Yup. But hair below the surface of the scalp is living human life.
• George Costanza could have used that line.
--
€ R.L.Measures, 805-386-3734, www.somis.org
remove _ from e-mail adr
.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 03:05:37 PM |
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 13:02:31 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
No it isn't. There is no separation of life unless when you cut your hair you
die because your brain is gone.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 11:07:52 PM |
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duke wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 13:02:31 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
If you brush your hair and look at the brush when
you are done, the hair you see will be human too. r
Human hair, but not human life.
Human hair is human life.
No it isn't. There is no separation of life unless when you cut your hair you
die because your brain is gone.
Say what now?
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
23 Jul 2005 07:12:46 PM |
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Fritzz wrote:
"DanielSan" <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote in message
news:HxnEe.760$vY2.225@trnddc09...
Del wrote:
jsavard@ecn.ab.ca wrote:
Abortion is like slavery, because it deprives the unborn of equal
rights.
Zygotes, embryos and (for the most part) fetuses have
no rights. They never have. They aren't people.
Since the religious love the slippery slope idea so much, I can help them
along:
If we give zygotes, embryos and fetuses rights, what's next? Giving dogs
rights?
Dogs aren't human; however, human zygotes, embryos & fetuses are.
Okay, fine. If we start giving zygots, embryos and fetuses rights,
twhat's next? Giving my toes individual rights away from myself?
There is
a difference.
Irrelevant. That is not how the slippery-slope fallacy works. J
started with equating abortion to slavery using slippery-slope; I was
just trying to show how stupid equating abortion to slavery was.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 08:02:05 AM |
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 00:12:46 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
Dogs aren't human; however, human zygotes, embryos & fetuses are.
Okay, fine. If we start giving zygots, embryos and fetuses rights,
twhat's next? Giving my toes individual rights away from myself?
Zygots, embryos and fetuses are separate human life from the parent. Your toes
aren't.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
.
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| User: "Sneekers" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 08:12:03 AM |
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 08:02:05 -0500, duke <duckgumbo32@cox.net> wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 00:12:46 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
Dogs aren't human; however, human zygotes, embryos & fetuses are.
Okay, fine. If we start giving zygots, embryos and fetuses rights,
twhat's next? Giving my toes individual rights away from myself?
Zygots, embryos and fetuses are separate human life from the parent.
So are sperm and ova.
Your toes
aren't.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 03:01:36 PM |
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:12:03 -0400, Sneekers <sneekersiswatchingrjh@yahoo.com>
wrote:
Zygots, embryos and fetuses are separate human life from the parent.
So are sperm and ova.
Nope. I'm not surprised you don't know that.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
.
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| User: "Sneekers" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 03:24:26 PM |
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On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 15:01:36 -0500, duke <duckgumbo32@cox.net> wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:12:03 -0400, Sneekers <sneekersiswatchingrjh@yahoo.com>
wrote:
Zygots, embryos and fetuses are separate human life from the parent.
So are sperm and ova.
Nope.
Yup. They have to be alive in order to merge and form the initial
conceptus.
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| User: "DanielSan" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
24 Jul 2005 11:06:49 PM |
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duke wrote:
On Sun, 24 Jul 2005 09:12:03 -0400, Sneekers <sneekersiswatchingrjh@yahoo.com>
wrote:
Zygots, embryos and fetuses are separate human life from the parent.
So are sperm and ova.
Nope. I'm not surprised you don't know that.
No. Sperm and ova are human life.
--
****************************************************
* DanielSan -- alt.atheism #2226 *
*--------------------------------------------------*
* "No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, *
* the non-existence of Zeus or Thor - but they *
* have few followers now." Arthur C. Clarke *
****************************************************
.
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| User: "duke" |
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| Title: Re: Sexual Repression: The Slavery Of Our Time |
25 Jul 2005 06:10:50 AM |
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On Mon, 25 Jul 2005 04:06:49 GMT, DanielSan <daniel-san@myrealbox.com> wrote:
Nope. I'm not surprised you don't know that.
No. Sperm and ova are human life.
No they're not.
duke
*****
"The Mass is the most perfect form of Prayer."
Pope Paul VI
*****
.
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