I wrote a long response to this one on FB, so thought I'd "dignify" this rather foolish column with some elements of that response.
First of all, the following paragraph is completely backward:
TREAT OTHERS THE WAY YOU WANT TO BE TREATED. If we do not make this the cornerstone of our society, if we do not understand that infringing on the freedom of consenting adults to live their lives (in whatever fashion that happens to be) is infringing on the freedom of us all, then we will eventually join other society, culture, and civilization that has ever existed, on the trash heap of history marked "Failure" -- brought there by conflicts those civilizations bred into being, conflicts between those lacking empathy and those desirous of freedom.The Western civilization that makes the levels of freedom that made it possible for people to debate such issues as "gay marriage" has already committed suicide on the altar of contraception and abortion. Besides being broke, we don't have a replacement population. One can argue the future, but it will absolutely belong to those that show up. That is Muslims, Hispanic Catholics, and potentially African Christians. (one might give Mormons a charitable chance). Their positions on "gay marriage" are important for the next century, ours are really not. We already opted out of that century.
The "cornerstones of society/culture/civilization" are things that have proven true over thousands of years. Marriage, Family and the Christian Religion were key "cornerstones", along with Judaism plus Greek and Roman thought. The ONLY incidence of "gay marriage" was Nero and a few other Roman rulers proudly flaunting their immorality "because they could" and it was not coincidentally very near to the end of the Roman Empire. Nero would have laughed at the idea that it was "moral". He was powerful, and he enjoyed it, nuff said.
In the culture that WAS our civilization, mans life had meaning because it was part of an eternal meaningful existence that included transcendent values that engendered virtues. Faith, hope, love that went beyond physical and involved commitment, honor, civility and many others. Life was not only worth living, it was worth having children and believing that their future was going to be better than yours. People would never have considered it remotely "moral" to saddle future generations with massive debt. It was a world where a sneering profane diatribe by some plebeian sport figure would have never been published in any forum remotely public.
His quote of the Niemoller poem with people that disagree over re-naming the oldest of human cultural institutions to a new purpose makes brings to mind the sagacity of a couple of folks arguing Global Warming while freezing to death in a May snowstorm.
"They", already came in the form of reality. Those that believed 100% in the non-teleological survival of the fecund decided that not having kids was a highly "adaptive" course of action, thus passing the most natural of judgement on our civilization while remaining as clueless as Kluwe.
'via Blog this'
In the culture that WAS our civilization, mans life had meaning because it was part of an eternal meaningful existence that included transcendent values that engendered virtues. Faith, hope, love that went beyond physical and involved commitment, honor, civility and many others. Life was not only worth living, it was worth having children and believing that their future was going to be better than yours. People would never have considered it remotely "moral" to saddle future generations with massive debt. It was a world where a sneering profane diatribe by some plebeian sport figure would have never been published in any forum remotely public.
His quote of the Niemoller poem with people that disagree over re-naming the oldest of human cultural institutions to a new purpose makes brings to mind the sagacity of a couple of folks arguing Global Warming while freezing to death in a May snowstorm.
"They", already came in the form of reality. Those that believed 100% in the non-teleological survival of the fecund decided that not having kids was a highly "adaptive" course of action, thus passing the most natural of judgement on our civilization while remaining as clueless as Kluwe.
'via Blog this'