Watch me do it at The American Spectator. I'm dealing with two issues in this piece.
1. Is Dobson totally out to lunch on the Nazi comparison? (Nope.)
2. Is David Gelernter correct to say Dobson doesn't belong in the major leagues of public discourse? (Nope again.)
Hunter, your piece is excellent on all fronts.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would add a further point. It's one thing to read out Joe Sobran or Pat Buchanan or Michael Savage for allowing their discourse to be sullied by quirky biases and/or crude rhetoric. But this type of only-guys-who-extend-their-pinky-finger-while-sipping-red-wine-can-sit-at-the-table elitism has no place in the post-Reagan conservatism that has successfully redefined politics and culture.
The genius of our movement is that the white-collar business guy, the white-collar seminary student, the blue-collar worker and the redneck farmer add up to a red-white-and-blue patriotism that puts God and country before Me and Myself.
I want to add that I have always enjoyed Gelernter's writing. It was surprising to see him taking this angle in an op-ed. The whole major leagues/minor leagues thing was offensive.
ReplyDeleteGreat piece! Your logic was impeccable!
ReplyDeleteNo, Tlaloc, the uproar only comes when they suggest that it's perfectly healthy for grown men to shower with OTHER people's children...
ReplyDeleteAh, so Anonymous, you're taking the "gays are pedophiles" route? Way to reveal yourself as totally and completely uninformed. Stop dumbing down the debate here. T and I might be dissenters, but at least we're smart about it.
ReplyDeleteI think T's more PO'd about the inherent hypocrisy in that statement. Say, if PFLAG said "Showering with his father can aid a boy in cementing his gender identity" (which is what Dobson is saying; see, Locke, that's "psychologyese") then y'all'd be flipping out.
ReplyDelete"Baby tastes like chicken"
ReplyDeleteROFL
"Baby! The other OTHER white meat!"
JE --
ReplyDeleteI don't believe I was dumbing down the discussion at all, and no offense taken (though intended, I'm sure).
I never said that all gays are pedophiles; but certainly, you can't deny that the whole NAMBLA movement was a product of the gay revolution of the '60s and '70s.
Because the gay movement -- by it's frequent associations -- has forfeited it's right to express moral outrage at abhorrent behavior (after all, they can't go around judging others' private conduct), it tends to embrace -- by omission or commission -- all forms of deviant sexual conduct.
So, yes, there probably would be outrage if gays came out suggesting it was healthy for men to shower with boys -- even though the suggestion was without pedophilic intent.
Unfortunately, because of the company they sometimes keep, they have lost the presumption of moral innocence.
Oh, and to bring this discussion full circle -- well, at least full semi-circle --
ReplyDeleteT, don't be so sure you were always eating UNfertilized chicken eggs. Anyone who's hung around a farm long enough knows those little red dots on the yolks ain't paprika.
So, how do you feel about telling children they're eating baby chickens? Or, is it okay as long as it doesn't have a beak and feathers?
T --
ReplyDeleteNot to beat a dead horse (do we have enough animal metaphors here?), but by your last post, does the converse apply?
I.e., if you're eating a fertilized egg (you know, the red dot kind), then you're eating a baby chicken?
Just want to be sure we're clear. Wouldn't want to put the horse before the cart.
Baby chicken tastes like infant.
ReplyDeleteMakes "Animal Farm" all the more compelling, really.
ReplyDeleteat least you could say you were eating somethig that might have become a baby chicken. Hence the similarity between waste fetuses and unfertilized eggs, neither had any chance whatsoever of becoming a full organism.
ReplyDeleteThis is simply factually wrong. A "waste fetus" (gads, what an ugly locution. It should ba a tip-off that evil is lurking about when such words fly out of keyboards) is a human at the earliest stage of development. At some point it was sitting in a dish next to another practically identical fetus, which was chosen to be implanted in a womb and, if everything went well, emerge nine months later as a baby. The only difference between the baby and the "waste fetus" is that the "waste fetus" wasn't chosen by the fertility clinic to be implanted. And if you'd chosen to leave the fertilized hen's egg under the hen, it would have become a chick.
The human analogue to an unfertilized hen's egg is the the unfertilized ovum that is flushed from a woman's body every month if she doesn't get pregnant. While there may be ethical concerns in how such eggs are obtained for research (is consent truly informed, are health risks to the donor fully disclosed, etc.) there is not a per se moral problem with biological research on unfertilized human ova, at least from the point of view of my Church.
Thanks, Kathy -- I was shooting all around the mark, but you hit the bullseye for me.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoy your posts.
Now, back to my eggs for breakfast...
Well, sometimes you city slickers just need to let the Hoosier farm girl take charge.
ReplyDeleteMy mom cracked open a egg one time that did have a beak and feathers in it. We weren't always so good at finding the eggs right away. Mom wasn't terribly squeamish, but it was some time before she served sausage scramble again.