talking points that piss you off

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"Homophobia is the same thing as racism"

Wait wait what ?

How is homophobia different than racism exactly ?

Um, one is basically pre-judging or hating a race of people who just happen to be of a differently ethnicity. Another is a natural feeling of unease at abnormal sexual attractions.

To me, their are black people and white people. I don't recognize 'gay people' as a group, I recognize that certain people have abnormal sexual attractions, but that's doesn't make them a special group to me, no matter what the particular attraction may be.

There is nothing biologcally 'off' about people born of a different race, it is part of the identity. Abnormal sexual attraction is obviously biologically 'off' since it has no natural purpose. Therefore, feeling uncomfortable towards it is natural, and for alot of people probably would not fade with more exposure like racism.

I'm not even going to get into the inherently fallacious nature of the way you're using the word 'natural', but it's completely false that same-sex behavior has no 'natural' purpose, unless you're one of those special 'selfish gene' types who think that teleology in nature is limited to the direct transmission of alleles. In species that engage in same-sex behavior it's been observed to:

Enhance social bonding, particularly between males, sometimes in situations where the usual alternative would be conflict (it's also been used for this in human societies)
Trigger parthenogenesis in some species (not applicable to humans)
Limit population growth (arguably not applicable to humans)
Establish hierarchies (it's also been used for this in human societies)

And more!

Of course, the simple fact which none of this changes is that in humans it's characterized by exactly the same sorts of feelings of love that you, if you are indeed heterosexual, presumably have or can imagine yourself feeling towards a woman, and since there's no abuse that can come of it that's inherent to the groups being discussed (as with, say, pedophilia and at the very least most incest), there's no legal reason to treat it any differently, even if it's morally marginally more complicated than that. The state's job isn't to put its citizens out to stud.


ETA: I should clarify that there are obviously purposes and significance in life beyond the sexual, in case my use of the word 'teleology' above was confusing about this point. I don't, intellectually, make a great gulf of separation between one's sexuality and the rest of their life, even though in my personal life sexuality is next to nonexistent; so even if we're not centering sex I don't think it's terribly helpful to decenter it quite to the extent that we would have to if we were selecting groups of people for whom to treat it separately from their emotional lives on the basis of real or perceived gender differences. TJ rightly pointed out that I wasn't terribly clear on this point, and I'm afraid I'm still not, but if I were to fully address what he brought up it would take a while and I might have to start my whole argument over again.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Or if one believes the teleology of sex acts is for procreation. I wouldn't be so sex-centered as to claim there is no more to teleology than just sex.

That's why I specified teleology in nature (the all-too-common construction of 'nature' as something that doesn't include human civilization and exists essentially as a proving ground for the life sciences, which is the opposite extreme to the naturalistic fallacy and not entirely unrelated to it), but you do of course raise a legitimate point. I wouldn't claim that either. I'll edit the initial post to make this clearer.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Liberals are "nice people", conservatives are "nasty people"

The rich have a "fair share" that they must pay for welfare

South Africa is a better country now than in 1994

Global Warming

I'm a little leery of the implications of not liking the third.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Democrats are the party of science because they are so often contrasted with the specific wing of the Republican Party who think that science is full of crap because they come up with things like evolution.

Being considered the 'party of...' something like science by process of elimination is stupid, I think is the point that's being made.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

South Africa is a better country now than in 1994

Global Warming

Cool! Now there's somebody we can talk to about all the talking points we hate, like "Black people are better off now than in 1964", "the 13th Amendment was a great idea", "Science is typically correct", things like that.

Whoa I'm not denying any of those things. But given the rise in AIDS, crime and corruption in SA since 1994, I find these rosy depictions of the rainbow nation gut-wrenching, as it seems to be going the way of Rhodesia. As for global warming I find the science behind it questionable, and often politically motivated.

It takes...um, a Hell of a lot for a country to 'go the way of Rhodesia'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

For what it's worth, an important source for the idea of preserving slavery being the lion's share of the Southern ruling class's motivations for secession was the fact that the Southern ruling class, when asked at the time about their motivations for secession, said that preserving slavery was the lion's share. Lincoln of course was a politician, and while he may verily have been Honest Abe he was so purely in comparison to other politicians.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Obviously this thread is a disaster, but with regards to France it should be pointed out that a certain disconnect between rhetoric and reality is a traditional (the most traditional?) feature of political language there. In any case, the existence of a formerly viable hard left political tradition does not make the entire country so inclined...

But then the Guardian is incredibly left-wing.

Hahaha, no.

Didn't they endorse the Lib Dems? Obviously far-left.

Perhaps I should have phrased it differently, but anyone denying that the Guardian has a leftist bent is obviously living in a dreamworld. I wouldn't call the Lib Dems far-left, but their claim that they are centrist is just laughable.

Clearly the Lib Dems are liberal. I don't know how a British person becomes so Americanized as to come to believe that liberalism and leftism are the same thing.