Oh, my stars and garters – it’s Carrot Top!!! :eek:
And then Polycarp had to bring up the name of the Anti-Christ, and the virtual rivers ran with blood, and crops were destroyed by a cloud of prop comedians…
Did you know that “flamboyant” is just French for “flaming”?
Heads up! There’s a Gallagher squadron at 3 o’ clock! Garbage bags…UP! Advance with sledge hammers!
I’m sure every person has his own reason. Some reject it because it is politically ineffective, and has little hope of winning major offices. Some reject it because they understand its platform, and others reject it because they do not understand its platform. Some people, like me, reject it for the same reason that we reject any political party — it is infested with politicians.
But if I were both gay and politically active, choosing the Libertarian Party would be a no-brainer. I don’t mind people discriminating with respect to their own private property, including their businesses. I do this all the time. So does everyone else. People discriminate on such frivolous grounds as looks, for example. They might prefer to associate with or hire people they consider to be at least attractive enough to please customers. As you know, the LP does not seek to ban such discrimination.
The problem is when such private discrimination is institutionalized the way it used to be in the US. Not only could my father not eat in the white section of a restaurant, but the government itself sanctified the whites-only establishments with special laws, regulations, and favors that gave them competetive advantages. Local and state government maintained white supremacy by turning a blind eye to lynchings and other vigilante actions.
But when government protects the property (rights) of minorities, people are able to rise to the challenges before them. They are free from the violent interference of others. Look at Cherokee County in North Carolina, for example. Once government loosened its thumb, the region almost immediately began to prosper, and its people quickly rose to levels of prosperity they had never known before. Most people naturally want to succeed, and given the freedom, they can.
Personally, I am insulted by laws that force someone not to discriminate against me. Set aside the fact that such laws don’t work (people only discriminate much more carefully). Nevermind the fact that I just generally don’t like being where I’m not welcomed.
The fact of the matter is that I am not stupid or impotent. I don’t need any favors from someone who hates me, thank you. All government needs to do is behave libertarianly — that is, keep those bigots off my back and make them leave me alone. Don’t let them send their goons after me. Don’t make special laws or do special favors for them. Don’t let them trespass on my property. Given freedom from their interference, I believe that there is nothing I cannot accomplish.
Anti-discrimination laws are intrinsically hopeless and myopic. Because of them, people are necessarily divided into classes — classes that are without scientific basis, like race and sexual orientation. Not everyone is black or white; some people are a mixture of “races”. Not everyone is either straight or gay; some people are somewhere in between. And because these classes are specified, there are other classes that are excluded. Ugly people, for instance. They are discriminated against all the time in almost every way. But they are not defined as a class, and therefore are not subject to anti-discrimination laws.
As a human being, you cannot be satisfied simply with securing a so-called level playing field merely for a class with which you might identify. You want every individual, regardless of class, to be able to achieve to the limits of his abilities. The only possible way to accomplish this is to make every individual free from the imposed will of all other individuals. And that is what libertarianism — and to a somewhat lesser extent, the LP — seeks to make happen.
I don’t think you are a neo-Nazi or bigot or anything, but I just keep thinking about Jews in Germany the day after Kristallknacht, and how close what it is you are suggesting is what people would have suggested to them - mind your own business, keep your mouths shut, and let it pass.
Well, as we know, it didn’t pass, and the Nazis railroaded them literally to the death camps, and they didn’t fight back.
My point is that, no, I don’t see any value whatsoever in keeping a low profile, now or ever. I think it’s latent homophobia on your part to suggest it.
That was in response to the OP.
I’m not reading 5 pages of this shit. I’m sure it’s turned into a hug-fest in the past 2 pages, but I don’t give a shit.
I just wanted to suggest that people who use the word “flaunt” can take that word and … well… sodomise themselves with it.
The only fucking time I have ever heard that word used is in reference to queer people doing normal shit, like saying they went to the movies with their girlfriend or holding hands across the table in a restaurant. Fuck you!
You want to hear your post the way I hear it? Here is what I hear:
“Many people are dissaprove of the US military and it’s actions in some manner, and yet you choose to flaunt your association with them. Why would you do that, I ask only out of my concern for you (cos I have no problem personally with people in the military, some of my best friends are in the armed forces), people might, say, judge your posts on the basis of your username and not their content. Maybe it’s the vestiges of my hippy upbringing or something, but I still associate the acronym USAF with bad.”
Screw it, I don’t need to do the whole damned post. My point should be over-clear by now. Fuck you and your flaunting, if you can’t think of something sensible to say keep your mouth shut.
So will we be hearing from Airman again, or is that that?
Esprix
I’ve been trying to understand the OP, and I wonder if his sense of discomfort is more a semantic one. Ie: the word “sodomy” has been a perjorative word, a swear word/blashphemy, the word for a crime - it has carried the weight of an obscenity.
I have absolutely nothing against the use of it for the Stunning Sodomites, but still, when you hear that phrase, it is quite shocking. Not because of the practice, but because of the word. To me, it is rather like the word “nigger”. It’s a word to describe something totally fine A/OK - blackness - but a word that has been used to perjoratively describe that state. Now black people are starting to reclaim it, but it can still be quite startling to hear a black person use the word “nigger”. Ditto sodomy.
Eg: compare it to “anal sex” - which just sounds medical. Or compare it to “buggery” - which sounds a bit rude or even comical, but has no real moral-badness-weight. Sodomy has been the term for a crime, so the actual word needs to be reclaimed, not just the act legalised.