My interest was more in your thoughts about how the debate may change once science has developed enough to answer the question ‘what is homosexuality’ and ‘how does homosexuality come about?’
I think you raise a good question with the chemical imbalance possibility and the then consequent ‘suggestion’ that homosexuality will be able to be ‘cured’ in the future by scientific advancement.
Surely if science can determine what makes someone homosexual then there will be physical advancements to change or prevent homosexuality.
If that is the case, then the question is, does the person involved have the right to change and/or does the family involved (for the womb case) have the right to ensure conditions are such that homosexuality is avoided?
And if individuals have the right to determine this, and families have the right to determine this, then why not communities?
I think also tapacall that the ‘choice’ argument is a red herring. I can’t remember the time i consciously chose to like my dog. Obviously there are a lot of factors involved in such things. Reducing the possibilities to either a moment in time when a conscious choice was made, or a genetic (or chemical) pre-dispostion to make me like my dog, seems like an unnecessary constraint.
You don’t have to get really bored searching for the massage, (sic) it’s in the first line!
The ‘Russian link’ has the sentence “The UN warned in 2005 that Russia’s then population of about 143 million could fall by a third by 2050, if trends did not improve.” It had two footnotes one to a BBC news report
and the other to a United Nations website that is no longer supported.
As far as the Canadian Pastors issue i dealt with it 2 weeks ago and you are still banging on about it. If you can’t see my reply to Mickles on the 5th of May, straight after his query about the comment then you must have problems reading.
As i have said multiple times now CM. It is so frustrating talking to you because you just don’t follow what has been said.
You are either completely stupid or get some sort of twisted pleasure in having me repeat myself multiple times pointing to the evidence you continue to say isn’t there.
on the 9th of May i said i’d change the website for a couple of days to show you. On the 13th May you write back to say you just checked it and it’s not there.
What could have happened i wonder?
mmmmmmm, (I’ll help you. Here is the link again with the “Hello CM” re-written. Please post back this time within 2 days so i can take it down again).
under the heading MAIN TRENDS. the sentence in question supplies two 2 footnotes.
mmmmmm,
the Canadian pastors.
I said that i dealt with that comment straight away and that the post was in moderation. On the 10th May I said that finally after a few days most of my comments in moderation, were allowed. I wonder where the answer to this question might be?
mmmmmmmmmm, (i’ll help you – look back at the posts that have since been allowed, straight after Mickles questioned that statement. 5th May addresses to Mickles).
We should also look at the family. Europe in general has become more individualistic. A change in the last 50 years is that much more households have become 2 income. This can be presented as a freedom and in some ways it obviously is. But we do not want to get to the situation where both parents (or increasingly non parents in Europe), with a very high mortgage are virtual working slaves trying to pay off a few bricks and mortar for the best part of their lives instead of participating in a rich family and community life.
Two incomes has definitely meant that we are richer but it also means house prices and common goods inevitably go higher and family/community life suffers. With a fall off in birth rates many western countries have had to import foreigners to keep the illusion of sustainable living standards (underwritten by the state) going. This has further weakened community solidarity.
Perhaps it is a matter of what is important to people. For the last few decades in Europe culture and community seems to have taken a back step to economics and individualism. I think the lower birth rates and increased work participation was a boon which allowed a massive state to be set up and underwrite ‘created rights’. I think that boon was temporary and we are on the other side of it now with the realisation that it is unsustainable in the long term.
This has meant many now are forced to work hard and delay/forgo families in order to pay for an unsustainable state program. We have also been encouraged to look to the state (who collects all the money) and not look to ourselves/our neighbours / our community groups. We might ask in the long run where does individualism and temporary economic boons get us.
So to conclude this rather hastily thought out rant, i would discriminate in government towards commitment rather than entitlement or ‘created rights’.
I would discriminate in favour of families who show commitment to children, businesses that must demonstrate commitment to the Irish population, and a plethora of community groups that show commitment to education/charity/culture/fun etc.
I would take the pain of massively reducing immigration, i would look to keep inflation down and curb rises in house prices, and i would look to form policy on a family basis more than an individual basis.
And underpinning this i would look to remove the state as the underwriter of rights as in the end it is not affordable and will crash. I would encourage people to look towards community groups that encourage and demonstrate a membership of community volunteering which builds local infrastructure.
This is a scary step for a lot of people but if you look at the Eastern Europe that you mentioned previously, that is where the idea of state dominating utopia ends up.
In short, the state should discriminate in favour of groups who show commitment to Irish society. It must look to be a facilitator that creates strong independent communities and not the sole underwriting dominator that needs to tax families and import workers to keep the illusion running until it breaks.
As i mentioned at the start, these are just my unprofessional thoughts.
i think the state needs to deliberately empower organisations and be a facilitator rather than the monolith of law, morality, discrimination and safety net.
We need to empower organisations that will have a passion for fixing problems and at the same time create strong communities. Obviously i think the Church is a big part of that, so too are trade unions, sporting bodies, schools etc etc.
We want to inspire people of passion who will go out and perform charity, start schools, hospitals, universities, businesses etc. We don’t want to inspire people to be overpaid Brussels bureaucrats shuffling money from one group to another as the money slowly runs out.
We need to discriminate in favour of European businesses but at the same time make sure they are not a law unto themselves and relocate offshore.
That means a rethink on ‘rights’ we give to people and more of a concentration on community responsibilities. I think we have to have government favour families with children and look to create and support businesses.
I’d suggest the West in general (with Ireland perhaps the least) has a masked demographic problem that needs to be fixed. This will at some point be painful to put right.
Government is all about discrimination. that is discriminating in favour of one group and discriminating against another. The question is who should the government discriminate in favour of arouses deep passions?
Growing up on the left it was an easy answer. Discriminate against the (relative) rich and give it to the (relative) poor. I am not convinced now that the state is a good model for that.
I agree that mass immigration is masking many of the failures of Western government structural social policies as you have suggested.
I travel in many Asian countries who are doing it the other way around. They do not have policies that cause a structural failure in society and they are gradually developing economically. No doubt many of their current corresponding economic performances are not yet on a par with Europe, but they are catching up extremely fast. Some have started to go past Europe though most are still behind.
Capitals of Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul Taipei and Jakarta have come from nowhere in the last 40 years to be the modern blueprint for their respective countries which governments are rolling out across each country where possible.
Perhaps their approach, like that of the tortoise, is the best one in the end and something Europe will have to revisit.
Perhaps many of the social policy changes that were introduced into Europe from the 1960′s onwards were done from a position of relative economic dominance which afforded a degree of affordability.
I would suggest a couple of things might have happened.
After the war i believe, like many countries, there was an abnormally high spike in the birth rates.
Also, the age structure of the Russian population in the 1950′s and 1960′s was likely much younger and thus was strong enough to have a higher abortion rate and not go into a decrease in overall population. As the demographic situation got progressively worse towards the end of the century then it was no longer of a healthy enough structure to withstand such pressures.
With the other point i would say that just about all of the West masks the natural increase/(decrease) demographic problems they have, with very high levels of immigration. If that did not happen then we would see similar demographic problems.
Even with mass immigration of young people into the EU we are still told that the West is facing huge problems with the welfare state and the greying of the population.
Without the mass immigration the European populations would go into decline. Then the millions of abortions (and its moral acceptability) would become much more significant and recognisable in helping drive that decline.
i wouldn’t use the phrase ‘cancel each other out’ but yes i agree that you can point to the morality of Christian people that have had an (unwanted) affect on gays. Some youtube videos i have watched are quite disgusting in that respect.
Hence the call for a more pluralistic approach instead of a ‘winner take all’ approach.
Again i agree with your second point, things do get complicated when the Church is part of the state.
I think, just like the separation of powers in government into legislative, executive and judiciary we should look to design a structure more generally in society where government does not become the monolith of morality. That has had bad outcomes in the past. Part of this ‘new structure’ could be the disestablishment of the Church of England. Of course that is for the English to decide.
Perhaps we are living through a period now where we are working all these issues out, but it seems to be a scatter gun approach that is causing unease, mistrust, concern and further fragmentation in society.
We have secular humanist ideology going head to head with Christian ideology; we have human rights legislation going head to head with religious liberty legislation; and we have a cultural ‘rule from the centre’ approach going head to head with a more diverse and fragmented cultural reality.
To recognise that we are different, and we live in a pluralist society i think everybody needs to give a little and to look at a system where one ideology cannot triumph. I think if it does that will also cause problems. I would like to see the recognition and empowerment of non government groups where the government is seen more as a facilitator of society but that is only my view.
From my point of view i am concerned that a secular government which originally was supposed to be neutral on religion is being redefined as non-religious. A subtle but powerful change. I am concerned that with this redefinition, those of a non-religious persuasion see the state as a vehicle to promulgate their ideology and look to build up the power of the state so that their ideology has a greater and greater sway/influence/lead on society.
I am concerned such an approach is unfair and will not end well.
Would it not be better to sit down and work out how a pluralist people are going to live side by side without the state being used as the sledge-hammer of moral uniformity? Especially if the state is seen to belong to one group or the other?
We seem to be having increasingly polarised groups fighting over the state on a multitude of these type of issues and the state is losing respect on many sides because of it.
Let’s not have the state as a monolith at the centre of society. If everyone is pulling at it, i am concerned it is likely to weaken and fall.
To bring this back to the topic of the thread, very few people want to see homosexuals suffer or be discarded. Let us create pluralistic forms of governance which recognises this majority position while at the same time recognising that valuable members of society (also part of that majority) have views about homosexuality which should also be respected with regards to education, free expression, medical treatments, adoption practices and the like.
In a completely monolithic government approach different views cannot exist, in a pluralistic structure they can.
Tweet I’m currently trawling through Norman Davies’s fabulous new tome – “Vanished Kingdoms” – Five stars in the (London) Telegraph’s review from Ben Wilson: All the nations that have ever lived have left their footsteps in the sand,” writes Norman Davies. “The traces fade with every tide, the echoes grow faint, the images are fractured, the [...] read our review »
Tweet Slugger should note the passing of Robert Kee, historian, TV and print journalist and RAF bomber pilot, who has died aged 93. In this age of revisionist debate, his TV history series first shown in 1981 and The Green Flag, the written history of Irish nationalism which accompanied it, were well timed and still stand [...] read our review »
Tweet Here’s something to keep you occupied over the weekend. [Will there be a quiz? - Ed] Possibly… The BBC magazine has an short and interesting, but un-embeddable, audio slide-show of Melvyn Bragg’s Radio 4 five-parter, In Our Time: The Written World. The British Library has more online information about the texts and technology featured in [...] read our review »
Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
on 16 May 2013 at 3:38 pm
Hi tapacall,
i think most people agree with what you express.
My interest was more in your thoughts about how the debate may change once science has developed enough to answer the question ‘what is homosexuality’ and ‘how does homosexuality come about?’
Go to comment
Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
on 16 May 2013 at 12:38 pm
Hello tacapall,
I think you raise a good question with the chemical imbalance possibility and the then consequent ‘suggestion’ that homosexuality will be able to be ‘cured’ in the future by scientific advancement.
Surely if science can determine what makes someone homosexual then there will be physical advancements to change or prevent homosexuality.
If that is the case, then the question is, does the person involved have the right to change and/or does the family involved (for the womb case) have the right to ensure conditions are such that homosexuality is avoided?
And if individuals have the right to determine this, and families have the right to determine this, then why not communities?
I think also tapacall that the ‘choice’ argument is a red herring. I can’t remember the time i consciously chose to like my dog. Obviously there are a lot of factors involved in such things. Reducing the possibilities to either a moment in time when a conscious choice was made, or a genetic (or chemical) pre-dispostion to make me like my dog, seems like an unnecessary constraint.
I’d be interested in your comments.
Go to comment
Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
on 13 May 2013 at 11:57 pm
You must be entirely stupid.
First line of the link i supplied had ‘Hello CM’. The first line!
http://whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/
You don’t have to get really bored searching for the massage, (sic) it’s in the first line!
The ‘Russian link’ has the sentence “The UN warned in 2005 that Russia’s then population of about 143 million could fall by a third by 2050, if trends did not improve.” It had two footnotes one to a BBC news report
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4125072.stm
and the other to a United Nations website that is no longer supported.
As far as the Canadian Pastors issue i dealt with it 2 weeks ago and you are still banging on about it. If you can’t see my reply to Mickles on the 5th of May, straight after his query about the comment then you must have problems reading.
As i have said multiple times now CM. It is so frustrating talking to you because you just don’t follow what has been said.
You are either completely stupid or get some sort of twisted pleasure in having me repeat myself multiple times pointing to the evidence you continue to say isn’t there.
Does anyone else not see it!
Or is it only CM?
Go to comment
Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
on 13 May 2013 at 9:51 pm
mmmmmmm,
on the 9th of May i said i’d change the website for a couple of days to show you. On the 13th May you write back to say you just checked it and it’s not there.
What could have happened i wonder?
mmmmmmm, (I’ll help you. Here is the link again with the “Hello CM” re-written. Please post back this time within 2 days so i can take it down again).
http://whatswrongwithatheism.wordpress.com/about/
mmmmmmm,
you say you want a link to the UN reporting that the Russian population could fall by a third if things did not change.
Again, i have said that i posted links to show you this. I wonder how you might go about verifying this?
mmmmmmmm, (i’ll help you. Here is the link again).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia
under the heading MAIN TRENDS. the sentence in question supplies two 2 footnotes.
mmmmmm,
the Canadian pastors.
I said that i dealt with that comment straight away and that the post was in moderation. On the 10th May I said that finally after a few days most of my comments in moderation, were allowed. I wonder where the answer to this question might be?
mmmmmmmmmm, (i’ll help you – look back at the posts that have since been allowed, straight after Mickles questioned that statement. 5th May addresses to Mickles).
mmmmmmmmm !!!!!!
Go to comment
Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
on 13 May 2013 at 1:41 pm
We should also look at the family. Europe in general has become more individualistic. A change in the last 50 years is that much more households have become 2 income. This can be presented as a freedom and in some ways it obviously is. But we do not want to get to the situation where both parents (or increasingly non parents in Europe), with a very high mortgage are virtual working slaves trying to pay off a few bricks and mortar for the best part of their lives instead of participating in a rich family and community life.
Two incomes has definitely meant that we are richer but it also means house prices and common goods inevitably go higher and family/community life suffers. With a fall off in birth rates many western countries have had to import foreigners to keep the illusion of sustainable living standards (underwritten by the state) going. This has further weakened community solidarity.
Perhaps it is a matter of what is important to people. For the last few decades in Europe culture and community seems to have taken a back step to economics and individualism. I think the lower birth rates and increased work participation was a boon which allowed a massive state to be set up and underwrite ‘created rights’. I think that boon was temporary and we are on the other side of it now with the realisation that it is unsustainable in the long term.
This has meant many now are forced to work hard and delay/forgo families in order to pay for an unsustainable state program. We have also been encouraged to look to the state (who collects all the money) and not look to ourselves/our neighbours / our community groups. We might ask in the long run where does individualism and temporary economic boons get us.
So to conclude this rather hastily thought out rant, i would discriminate in government towards commitment rather than entitlement or ‘created rights’.
I would discriminate in favour of families who show commitment to children, businesses that must demonstrate commitment to the Irish population, and a plethora of community groups that show commitment to education/charity/culture/fun etc.
I would take the pain of massively reducing immigration, i would look to keep inflation down and curb rises in house prices, and i would look to form policy on a family basis more than an individual basis.
And underpinning this i would look to remove the state as the underwriter of rights as in the end it is not affordable and will crash. I would encourage people to look towards community groups that encourage and demonstrate a membership of community volunteering which builds local infrastructure.
This is a scary step for a lot of people but if you look at the Eastern Europe that you mentioned previously, that is where the idea of state dominating utopia ends up.
In short, the state should discriminate in favour of groups who show commitment to Irish society. It must look to be a facilitator that creates strong independent communities and not the sole underwriting dominator that needs to tax families and import workers to keep the illusion running until it breaks.
As i mentioned at the start, these are just my unprofessional thoughts.
Go to comment
Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
on 13 May 2013 at 1:07 pm
i think the state needs to deliberately empower organisations and be a facilitator rather than the monolith of law, morality, discrimination and safety net.
We need to empower organisations that will have a passion for fixing problems and at the same time create strong communities. Obviously i think the Church is a big part of that, so too are trade unions, sporting bodies, schools etc etc.
We want to inspire people of passion who will go out and perform charity, start schools, hospitals, universities, businesses etc. We don’t want to inspire people to be overpaid Brussels bureaucrats shuffling money from one group to another as the money slowly runs out.
We need to discriminate in favour of European businesses but at the same time make sure they are not a law unto themselves and relocate offshore.
That means a rethink on ‘rights’ we give to people and more of a concentration on community responsibilities. I think we have to have government favour families with children and look to create and support businesses.
We should make housing affordability a priority.
Go to comment
Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
on 13 May 2013 at 12:56 pm
Hi DC,
i am not the best to have a say on politics.
I’d suggest the West in general (with Ireland perhaps the least) has a masked demographic problem that needs to be fixed. This will at some point be painful to put right.
Government is all about discrimination. that is discriminating in favour of one group and discriminating against another. The question is who should the government discriminate in favour of arouses deep passions?
Growing up on the left it was an easy answer. Discriminate against the (relative) rich and give it to the (relative) poor. I am not convinced now that the state is a good model for that.
Go to comment
Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
on 12 May 2013 at 6:39 am
DC, i think you make some good points.
I agree that mass immigration is masking many of the failures of Western government structural social policies as you have suggested.
I travel in many Asian countries who are doing it the other way around. They do not have policies that cause a structural failure in society and they are gradually developing economically. No doubt many of their current corresponding economic performances are not yet on a par with Europe, but they are catching up extremely fast. Some have started to go past Europe though most are still behind.
Capitals of Hong Kong, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul Taipei and Jakarta have come from nowhere in the last 40 years to be the modern blueprint for their respective countries which governments are rolling out across each country where possible.
Perhaps their approach, like that of the tortoise, is the best one in the end and something Europe will have to revisit.
Perhaps many of the social policy changes that were introduced into Europe from the 1960′s onwards were done from a position of relative economic dominance which afforded a degree of affordability.
Perhaps they should now be seriously questioned.
What do you think?
Go to comment
Comment on The struggle for abortion and other reform north and south is far from over
on 11 May 2013 at 4:59 pm
I would suggest a couple of things might have happened.
After the war i believe, like many countries, there was an abnormally high spike in the birth rates.
Also, the age structure of the Russian population in the 1950′s and 1960′s was likely much younger and thus was strong enough to have a higher abortion rate and not go into a decrease in overall population. As the demographic situation got progressively worse towards the end of the century then it was no longer of a healthy enough structure to withstand such pressures.
With the other point i would say that just about all of the West masks the natural increase/(decrease) demographic problems they have, with very high levels of immigration. If that did not happen then we would see similar demographic problems.
Even with mass immigration of young people into the EU we are still told that the West is facing huge problems with the welfare state and the greying of the population.
Without the mass immigration the European populations would go into decline. Then the millions of abortions (and its moral acceptability) would become much more significant and recognisable in helping drive that decline.
Go to comment
Comment on Sinn Fein undermining the sanctity of marriage
on 11 May 2013 at 2:59 am
Hello Comrade,
i wouldn’t use the phrase ‘cancel each other out’ but yes i agree that you can point to the morality of Christian people that have had an (unwanted) affect on gays. Some youtube videos i have watched are quite disgusting in that respect.
Hence the call for a more pluralistic approach instead of a ‘winner take all’ approach.
Again i agree with your second point, things do get complicated when the Church is part of the state.
I think, just like the separation of powers in government into legislative, executive and judiciary we should look to design a structure more generally in society where government does not become the monolith of morality. That has had bad outcomes in the past. Part of this ‘new structure’ could be the disestablishment of the Church of England. Of course that is for the English to decide.
Perhaps we are living through a period now where we are working all these issues out, but it seems to be a scatter gun approach that is causing unease, mistrust, concern and further fragmentation in society.
We have secular humanist ideology going head to head with Christian ideology; we have human rights legislation going head to head with religious liberty legislation; and we have a cultural ‘rule from the centre’ approach going head to head with a more diverse and fragmented cultural reality.
To recognise that we are different, and we live in a pluralist society i think everybody needs to give a little and to look at a system where one ideology cannot triumph. I think if it does that will also cause problems. I would like to see the recognition and empowerment of non government groups where the government is seen more as a facilitator of society but that is only my view.
From my point of view i am concerned that a secular government which originally was supposed to be neutral on religion is being redefined as non-religious. A subtle but powerful change. I am concerned that with this redefinition, those of a non-religious persuasion see the state as a vehicle to promulgate their ideology and look to build up the power of the state so that their ideology has a greater and greater sway/influence/lead on society.
I am concerned such an approach is unfair and will not end well.
Would it not be better to sit down and work out how a pluralist people are going to live side by side without the state being used as the sledge-hammer of moral uniformity? Especially if the state is seen to belong to one group or the other?
We seem to be having increasingly polarised groups fighting over the state on a multitude of these type of issues and the state is losing respect on many sides because of it.
Let’s not have the state as a monolith at the centre of society. If everyone is pulling at it, i am concerned it is likely to weaken and fall.
To bring this back to the topic of the thread, very few people want to see homosexuals suffer or be discarded. Let us create pluralistic forms of governance which recognises this majority position while at the same time recognising that valuable members of society (also part of that majority) have views about homosexuality which should also be respected with regards to education, free expression, medical treatments, adoption practices and the like.
In a completely monolithic government approach different views cannot exist, in a pluralistic structure they can.
I think we all need to learn how to ‘give a bit.’
Go to comment