Soulaquarium

Distinguishing the definition of marriage from its social function

2012-01-30T14:08:00.000-08:00

Instead of marriage, I think there should be a system of codes like they have in gay and kink subcultures. A green ring would say, "Approach me, I'm available." A red one would say, "I'm available, but will probably not be faithful." A yellow one would say, "I'm available but I have issues." A blue ring would say, "Please save me from loneliness and let me cry on your shoulder because I just got dumped." (There would be a lot less loneliness in our culture with a simple system like that.) A gold one would say, "I'm taken". A fake gold ring would say, "don't approach me unless you can afford an actual gold ring."

People argue about definitions of marriage but nobody seems to look at the function of marriage, which is basically to signal to a community that a couple has boundaries. Since we live in an open community and most people you encounter were not at the wedding, it's all about signaling with rings and words. So why not refine the signaling system? There's no ring for "Approach me, i'm shy", none for "Flirt with me but don't expect follow-through" and none for "married but still available". Seriously inefficient, if you ask me. Add emerging recognition of age-old but underground forms of relationship and the need is even more glaringly obvious... polyamorous people should be able to signal something other than "married and unnaproachable" with a ring... something more like, "I might be available, but you have to respect my primary partner/s".

I'm told in traditional Nigerian tribes, wearing a fan on a headdress would signal, "I want to flirt but nothing serious." That sounds very sensible to me... a lot of women like to flirt but don't want to lead guys on or feel obligated into anything. I'd appreciate that, because I like to flirt too, and I don't want to seem like I'm trying to get someone into bed just because I'm attracted.

Wondering what other areas of life we've messed up with standardized communication that doesn't address the actual functions of culture...

Returning to the blogosphere

2011-11-26T16:09:00.001-08:00

It's been a while since I posted here... remind me to come back and post once in a while! ;-)

Anger and incivility threaten to hijack this nation's public discourse | The Columbus Dispatch

2009-11-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

Anger and incivility threaten to hijack this nation's public discourse The Columbus Dispatch: "To my colleagues in the state legislature and other elected offices, I suggest we all take a close look in the mirror and see what messages we are sharing with our young people about how to resolve conflict, how to disagree, how to learn and how to get along with one another. Sure, power is won and lost in political battles, and the conventional way to victory is to throw fear and misdirection at your foes. And often the throwing gets really messy. We can do this differently."

Facebook | Michael Lockhart

2009-11-12T17:50:00.000-08:00

From Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols:

'On looking into one's nature, evil is killed by seeing the horror of its reflection. When evil recognizes itself it destroys itself. The mirror also symbolizes the mind of the sage.' 'Islamic: 'God is the mirror in which thou seest thyself as thou art his mirror. ...The universe is the mirror of God... man is the mirror of the universe.'

Was just thinking about mirroring in hypnosis, wondering if it would work in conflict resolution to subtly mirror the aggression of groups that are losing control, and then shift polarity. Animals seem to do that instinctively when they play-fight, turning potential conflict into something else.

2009-11-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Almost three years ago, Issa wrote an open letter to the two anonymous [Israeli] soldiers who shot and paralyzed him. It was published in Haaretz and elsewhere, and I've copied it below. It is worth reading:

I remember you. I remember your confused face when you stood above my head and wouldn't let people come to my aid. I remember how my voice grew weaker, when I said to you: 'Be humane and let my parents help me.' I keep all those pictures in my head. How I lay on the ground, trying to get up but unable. How I fought my shortness of breath, which was caused by the blood that was collecting in my lungs, and the voice that was weakened because my diaphragm was hurt. I won't hide from you that despite this, I had pity for them. I felt that I was strong, because I had powers I didn't know about before.

That was exactly three years ago. I rushed out of the house in order to distance the village children from the danger of the teargas. They were used to playing their simple games on the dusty streets of the village while the pregnant women watched over them and chatted. I didn't believe that your weapons contained live bullets or dum-dum bullets, which are prohibited under international law. I was able to protect the children and get them away from your fire, and I don't regret that.I pity you for having become murderers.

Since I was a boy, I have hated killing, hated weapons and hated the color red, just as I hate injustice and fight against it. That is how I have understood life since I was a boy, and that, in the same spirit, is what I have taught others. I gave all my strength for the sake of peace and justice and for reducing the suffering that is caused by injustice, whatever its origin. Yes, I pitied you, because you are sick. Sick with hate and loathing, sick with causing injustice, sick with egoism, with the death of the conscience and the allure of power. Recovery and rehabilitation from those illnesses, just as from paralysis, is very long, but possible. I pitied you, I pitied your children and your wives and I ask myself how they can live with you when you are murderers. I pitied you for having shed your humanity and your values and the precepts of your religion and even your military laws, which forbid breaking into homes and beating civilians, because that undermines the soldier's morale, his strength and his manhood.I pitied you for saying that you are the victims of the Nazis of yesterday, and I don't understand how yesterday's victim can become today's criminal. That worries me in connection with today's victim -- my people are those victims -- and I am afraid that they too will become tomorrow's criminals. I pity you for having fallen victim to a culture that understands life as though it is based on killing, destruction, sowing fear and terror, and lording it over others.

Despite all that, I believe that there is a chance for atonement and forgiveness and a possibility that you will restore to yourselves something of your lost humanity and morality. You can recover from the illnesses of hatred and the lust for revenge, and if we should meet one day, even in my house, you can be certain that you won't find me holding an explosive belt or concealing a knife in my pocket or in the wheels of my chair. But you will find someone who will help you get back what you lost.You will find a soft and delicate infant here, whose age is the same as the second in which you pulled the trigger and who will never see his father standing on his feet but who is full of pride and power, even if he has to push his father's chair, having no other choice. Even though I have reasons to hate you, I don't feel that way and I have no regrets.

-Issa Suf, 15 May 2004; the third anniversary of my being woundedIssa is Arabic for Jesus, who is also revered as a prophet in the Muslim faith.

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6869.shtml

2009-11-04T08:32:00.000-08:00

"Rand's particular intellectual contribution, the thing that makes her so popular and so American, is the way she managed to mass market elitism -- to convince so many people, especially young people, that they could be geniuses without being in any concrete way distinguished. Or, rather, that they could distinguish themselves by the ardor of their commitment to Rand's teaching." - Adam Kirsch

Transpartisan Alliance

2009-11-01T07:52:00.000-08:00

http://transpartisan.net/

This is the first entity I've been involved with that began with non-polarized, mixed group dialogue rather than a fixed position or set of values. Get everyone in the room, then find solutions. Don't lock anyone out of the room, don't coerce people into agreement or silence independent thought. Just get people together so there's a WE, and then act as we the people. Without integrating all sides of the political and religious spectrum, there's no real WE, just EW. Yuck, polarization!

They're using facilitation models used to change the culture of major corporations. Republicans can appreciate the cost savings and profit increases those methods have created. Democrats can appreciate the hippie-love-fest feeling you get when people are actually being nice to each other without regard to beliefs. Best of both worlds.

Genesis, illustrated by R Crumb

2009-10-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

An interesting review of the R. Crumb depicition of Genesis:
http://www.knoxville.com/news/2009/oct/13/review-r-crumbs-genesis-illustrated-electrifying-a/

Inevitably, the book will be controversial, but since it's based on a literal, straight rendering of the text, it will be very hard for conservative Christians to explain just why it offends. It would be great to see an illustrated version of Revelation done the same way.

2009-09-02T13:19:00.001-07:00

A lot of people are talking about the false information being used on the Right (I've heard some of the elderly people in our neighborhood repeat them, discouragingly). Some additional casualties of recent misinformation campaigns:

First, the important issue of deficits and spending is not given serious treatment, and any positive impact a fiscal conservative view might have on the final bill may be weakened. Money does matter, and we shouldn't become financially stupid just because the people arguing on the side of money are insane.

Second, Republicans lose their "brand identity" by acting in ways that Jesus would never approve. Lying to win a debate is not Christian, and it doesn't always win. Misrepresenting your opponents, bearing false witness, these are not things one can do and retain any association with the Prince of Peace, who argued for loving one's enemies, abandoning wealth, and forgiving debts. Those are not right wing positions. As for gay marriage, Jesus never mentioned it, although he did say that second marriages for women were adulterous and invalid (it's in the Gospels).

Many of today's Christian Conservatives do not adhere to any of those values, and are falsifying their own religious credentials (religion is one area where it's risky to blow your own horn). They might want to do some inward searching and see how their own actions have undermined their success. We could use a dose of authentic Christianity, or just a little human decency, and the real peace it might bring if we were to learn to understand each other for a change, no longer flinging stones across a growing but mostly artificial artificial political, religious and economic chasm.

Poem for Neda

2009-06-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

Poem for Neda

The collective body, bound and severed by our scalpeling minds,
whispering through the blood, the voice of our true mother
what gravity holds us down, what pours us down the drain
Who will bring this body back to life and make it sane?

I fall into my sorry self, descending through the shame
To find a point of silence far from all the shouts of blame
returning to the fertile ground from which I drew my blood
I fall into a pit and find a key beneath the mud

Her nations always falling, together and apart
the exponential replicating clones perfect their art
They tie their children's tongues and mummy-wrap their souls
But deep inside the children color past the lines of old

We'll fall as one into the pit, forever if need be
To finally reach the bottom, and recover the missing key.
We die within ourselves, and resurrect into the world
And soon, by God or no God, we'll be free.

Michael Lockhart

Like mercy itself

2009-06-25T18:59:00.000-07:00

There are such helpers in the world,
who rush to saveanyone who cries out.
Like Mercy itself, they run towards the screaming.

And they can't be bought off.

If you were to ask one of those, "Why did you come
so quickly?" he or she would say, "Because I heard
your helplessness.

-Written in the 13th century
by the great Persian poet, Rumi-

Psychological dangers of foreclosure

2009-06-25T18:50:00.000-07:00

I think it's worth talking about the emotional consequences of people being squeezed out of their homes. Psychologically, it's an assault on a person's foundation for living, i.e. a metaphor for death. The problem here is that real estate is both a commodity and a basis for a secure life (except for a small number of natural nomads who don't mind being "in between" dwellings). As long as one has some control over one's living space, it's possible to be calm, capable and ambitious without being greedy or manipulative. What happens when a large number of people are squeezed out of "their" homes, suddenly realizing they don't own the basis for their own security?

Being in debt is also a huge psychological stressor, triggering violence in some cases and anxiety in most. A lot of people have ADD or other issues affecting the prefrontal lobes, and they are easily lured into debt because of their natural present-tense focus. This plays on mental illness (or natural variations in neural configuration that are maladapted to modern systems), and perhaps qualifies morally as abuse -- but is not legally deemed abusive. No recourse for emotional suffering, only acknowledgement of the contract. Some people shouldn't get into contracts in the first place -- but they have no ability to know when they shouldn't, and no objective understanding (if not diagnosed) that neurological traits are subverting "responsibility". Self-blame, shame and family rifts are all part of the fallout. The fault lines deepen, and all we can do is ask whose fault it is. How about repairing the fault lines instead, reducing the psychological stress and the likelihood of random violence and family abuse?

I believe there are many people who are genetically incompatible with our economic system, who need alternatives to the standardized "go to college, get into debt, buy a house with more debt, and work it off until you die" paradigm. Perhaps some form of network marketing, which provides a mentor and low barriers to entry -- perfect for ADD and young people who instinctively reject the compulsive and compulsory aspects of the system. Network marketing is egalitarian, not so much a hierarchy as an organically branching tree. Is it possible to create a globally-networked economy of individuals, subverting mega-corporations and producing a genuinely diverse economy? It may be a matter of reaching near-zero entry costs, with products designed to educate and enable people to adapt to a changing world.

Paranoia and violence

2009-06-23T12:15:00.001-07:00

Is violence a reaction to the anticipated loss of acceptance by a social group? If so, does there need to be a group ready to accept people on the verge of violence?

A lot of people believe they aren't loved, and there is a tremendous cloud of judgment that threatens to turn people against each other. I think that would create violence. It would also explain the escalating effect, the irrational driven quality of violence. The more one goes beyond the normal boundaries of social behavior, the more one reacts to being unable to cross back in.

Genes and gangs

2009-06-23T11:59:00.001-07:00

Study: A certain gene helps determine gang membership.

Is Iran about to unleash a selected pool of genetic sociopaths on a resistance movement made up mostly of women?

That is a frightening thought.

Toxic revenge cycles

2009-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

When traumatized young men are taught to use revenge as therapy, revenge becomes more and more poisonous over time and hurts more and more innocent people along with (or instead of) the guilty.

There was a study mentioned in The Lucifer Effect, where "enforcers" of rules (delivering shocks for wrong answers) were willing to inflict pain on the guilty and innocent alike, as long as they are anonymous and not assured they would not be held accountable. Even women were willing to shock puppies (for real, not simulated), while crying and enduring extreme inner turmoil but failing to refuse and just walk away from the experiment. We'd like to think we're above all that, but experiments keep showing the opposite, that when an authority figure tells us to hurt someone, we do it, unless we are reminded of our accountability or given support in resisting.

The way to stop evil is to stop allowing secrecy and anonymity for the enforcers of law. But secrecy is what enables flawed men to pretend they're perfect, and that holds a great attraction for men in a shame-based culture. The irony is that most people can be taught to do evil in the name of good. So the mistakes old men try to hide by sacrificing young men and women are only human mistakes. They may die for those mistakes, but they won't be the last to make them, unless systems are made transparent. One group after another will crack down on innocent people in order to stop their enemies, simply because governmental systems are too big to work with human instincts and social loyalties. The clerics in Iran will protect each other, like all people do. In doing so, they may destroy a lot of people's lives, not realizing they could just walk away from their power, refuse to carry out the experiment. But giving up power renders everything one has done for power meaningless, and an identity must be shed.

Fear of God does not stop people from hurting others, as long as they can believe they are hurting God's enemies. But what if God has no enemies? That would explain, "Love your enemy". But it would mean a lot of old men in politics and religion have some explaining to do.

Mullah May I

2009-06-20T20:38:00.001-07:00

Interesting that the Supreme Leader is asserting his entitlement to absolute control while claiming the OUTCOME (most likely bad) is his enemy's responsibility. There's always that paradoxical aspect to power and control. I'm convinced the most powerful strategy is to shun attachment to power. That takes patience in a world where "powerful" people are admired and rewarded, and have to hide their doubts and flaws.

2009-06-20T20:25:00.000-07:00

Power has always been derived from grassroots, distributed cultural processes. It is only the king who remains unaware of his dependency on systems outside his control. The crowd keeps the king in the dark long enough to see if he does anything to justify his existence, and if he fails the test, the mechanisms of culture unravel the king's power even as he cracks down in his need to display it, to make it fact. Facts exist within networks of relationships and cannot be manufactured at will, even if the outward semblance of factual power can be maintained for a while through the theatrical use of fear.

One nice new fact of technology: digital cameras don't distinguish between the abuses of government and the abuses of revolutionary militias -- violence is allowed to be UGLY in its sensory form, as opposed to the disembodied language of political sacrifice which easily dismisses cruelty as necessary treatment for "lawbreakers". Maybe with that kind of impartial presentation of events, humanity will start to realize that "evil" people are trapped in bad systems that eventually cave in upon them, more tragic than terrifying. It's only the theatrical use of power, harming flesh-and-blood human beings, that is terrible. Individuals use systems of power to feel important and secure, and it's only a matter of degree whether we're talking about Rush Limbaugh's dismissal of the suffering of detainees at Abu Ghraib, or the Supreme Leader's denial of the legitimacy of civilian protests. Either way, someone's pain is papered over by words, and souls inherently capable of redemption and rebirth become trapped in labels, turned into instruments of some other will.

Why Obama isn't Reagan

2009-06-20T18:42:00.001-07:00

When Reagan made his Berlin Wall speech, everything that followed was a fait accompli -- not because of the drama of his speech, but because of all the work that had been done prior to that point, most of it not done by the US but by many factors orchestrating a perfect storm of freedom. Republicans seem to admire the Great Man who takes a stand, but without much understanding of how one must work with surrounding circumstances and not attempt to push the river of history uphill by force. To make a Great Man, things have to line up just right, and it's only marginally a matter of individual will. Bush acted Reaganesque, without the preparation or historical momentum to make the Great Plan work out. Obama isn't that blind, that I can see.

Worshipping the Great Man is a strange mistake for Christians to make, given that Christianity is a transcendent religion that provides no support to the Great Man theory. Nobody is great, that was the point of Christ's denunciation of hypocritical religious power. When the stoning mob was about to devoutly stone an adulteress to death, Jesus stepped in and used the best line ever from the field of revolutionary judo: "Let him who is without sin, cast the first stone." Anyone arrogant enough to take a throw would immediately single himself out, and his peers would know well from the grapevine that he was no saint. That kind of statement levels the usual power disparity between the well-connected and the isolated -- the anonymity of the jury pool is eliminated by the fact that *someone* has to be the first to throw, and instead of legitimizing the cruelty of the second and third throwers, the first stands alone and is judged by his own judgment. Note how this works before any stones are thrown at all -- the woman is saved from a horrible death at the hands of an arrogant, judgmental mob acting in God's name. The stoning mob is not punished, in part because they represent the law and it would be difficult to hold them accountable in such a system, but also because the intervention WORKS. It has power in the moment that matters to change the course of events and disrupt a contagiously oppressive mindset of unaccountable judgment.

I don't know how one would create a similar dynamic to stop gangs of self-righteous biker-priests. But the principle must be useful somehow.

Apocalyptic fits

2009-06-19T18:15:00.000-07:00

It's disturbing but possibly informative that millions of American Conservative Christians (note the placement of Christian AFTER Conservative, in contrast to their moderate and progressive counterparts) believe that any nation that protects Israel against the Arab and/or Russian hordes predicted to attack Israel in the End Times will be immune from prosecution, so to speak, when God's judgment swamps the world, and particularly the Middle East, with blood.

And yet, the Bible doesn't mention America by name. Will America be protected by God's warm, faithful blankie of non-wrath, or abandoned to face the famines, the plagues, the locusts, and the righteous, final genocidal ass-kicking by the Lamb of Vengeance, aka Jesus in his "manly" incarnation -- in contrast to the wimpy martyr who preached loving one's enemies as a pathway to heaven. This lamb is angry, not only because of rampant pork-eating on the Sabbath (although that would anger ME if I were a lamb) but because of homosexuality, drug use, promiscuity and disrespect for the flag. This lamb would make a biker-gangster feel guilty about setting a bad example. Bikers rarely kill lots of people all at once. They might have a few bodies in their basement along with the unused band gear and porn. But Apocalypse is mega-porn, a cosmic bloodbath of such epic proportions it's strangely disappointing that nobody has made a movie of it with decent CGI graphics and awesome, simply awesome three-dimensionally animated locusts with human faces and long hair like women. It's like you're THERE!

I'm done imagining the movie. Wow. So anyway, millions of Christians believe literally in this stuff, and by all appearances, there is great fear that America will sell out Israel just when it needs us most. And that would anger God, and so on, and before you know it, you're surrounded by painful (but not deadly) man-faced locusts who for some reason aren't stinging the gay couple across the street with the sign of the Antichrist in their foreheads or hands. Since they don't wear hats, you assume it's on their hands... you grasp your shotgun for comfort, and you know you're ready to be raptured or recruited for holy combat, one or the other.

And that means, Obama has a lot of very zealous souls to affect on the heart-and-mind level before they find some way to derail America's exponential descent into godless, amoral hedonism and even-handedness in matters of conflict. Can he do it? I suspect that depends a lot on you and me. Or God. I hope God is the good guy in all this, if he/she/them/it/us is there and is paying enough attention to Tweet CNN with some good ideas.

Obama pressured to posture on Iran

2009-06-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

Why would anyone demand that Obama make a dramatic public denunciation of the Iranian regime, without first having plans for the safety of reformers and for the making and keeping of credible threats should posturing fail?

Maybe Republicans are more about posturing than credibility. That would explain quite a bit.

2009-06-12T11:55:00.001-07:00

I must gleefully apologize to my reader/s for the inconsistent logic displayed in my previous post: obviously, if straight women flee an anti-abortion state, there will be a surplus of straight men, at least long enough to attract some of the anti-abortion women from neighboring states who want to avoid competing for men with the (obviously slutty and very liberal) wave of female immigrants. That's a simple population swap, like trading Texans for Mexicans, breaking about even.

The part about teenage girls potentially getting the death penalty in America is accurate, though. Go Sotomayor!

Axiomatic reasoning and culure wars

2009-06-12T11:03:00.000-07:00

I can't say the anti-choice movement is starting from a false axiom. How can I prove that killing a fetus isn't the same as killing a newborn? How can I prove that my own solution, taking into account the requirement of a functioning nervous system to feel pain, is correct? If one believes the nervous system isn't the hardware of the soul, they're starting from a different axiom, one difficult if not impossible to improve. Moreover, my own standard forces me to acknowledge that animals feel pain, including the cow-and-a-half or so I eat every year or so in Jumbo Jacks. Logic isn't going to get me anywhere in this debate. But perhaps my own human fallibility might:

What other axioms lead people to violate their own standard, with only a small likelihood of changing behavior to match the standard? (I probably won't stop eating hamburgers until I have my first, or maybe second bypass. I am, under my own axiom, a murderer of cows, a taker of life.)

What happens if the axiom, "Abortion is murder" is carried out in reality? Let's overturn Roe vs. Wade briefly and ask what changes would follow in the wake of criminalizing abortion (as murder, lest we appear soft on crime just because the perpetrator is a woman and the assassin holds a medical degree):

1. Rapid exodus of women from states that ban abortion. A woman has little reason to move to a state that has banned abortion, even if she agrees with it. We like to retain choice, we humans, and even if giving it up would make a good symbolic statement, we generally don't go that far in support of a cause. Rapid outflow of women means rapid outflow of heterosexual men (then gay marriage will HAVE to be banned, just to keep the population balanced -- Alabama doesn't want to be left with a bunch of gays in the jury pool empathizing with the accused because her shoes are fabulous).

2. Some states have the death penalty. Some have the death penalty for people under 18. Unless abortion is defined as SOMETHING OTHER THAN MURDER, there would eventually be the well-publicized (global and national) case of a thirteen-year-old girl, her parents and her doctor all implicated in abortion-murder, with at least the main offenders (the girl, who ordered the "hit" and the doctor who carried out with "cold-blooded efficiency") being exposed to the death penalty. She's tried as a juvenile (imagine how it would look if the country that condemned the Taliban to slow death for cruelty to women executed a teenage girl, rape or no rape, as if she were an adult) and has until she's 18 to ponder her evil act in detention. The doctor is, of course, executed, with appropriate cheering and waving of signs on the lawn outside the prison. The family gets time as accessories. Pretty ugly. Of course, it could be worse -- she could be fifteen and be tried as an adult. As in Afghanistan, when law loses its heart, culture crumbles to the ground as all the professionals, intellectuals, artists, gays (and their gay money, which no one refuses) flee an environment of cold repression and vindictive justice. Axioms are heartless -- you can be right (or at least no one can prove you wrong) about the axiom, and wrong in the conclusion, even if the logic is a flawless straight line... to insanity.

3. The law would almost immediately be adjusted so that abortion isn't defined as murder in the first degree (implying the woman isn't of sound enough mind to plan the abortion -- so how did she schedule it ahead of time?) but something more like manslaughter, some kind of reckless accident, like stabbing someone with scissors while skipping around a playground on LSD. The girl gets a lighter sentence (more signs and vocal displays by people who think she got off too easy) and the doctor is either given death or significant prison time. This means, not only are a lot of tax dollars now being used to inflict unnecessary suffering on women, their doctors, families, careers and whatnot, but the law is no longer reflecting the moral sentiment that created it! This is typical of axiomatic systems driven by punitive males: logic becomes so perfect, so absolutely right and unassailable, that actions spin out beyond the limits pluralistic culture can handle. If my logic is unquestionable and my axioms irrefutable, how can my actions be subject to restraint by civil authorities? Who has the authority to punish those who punish those whom God himself has condemned? Depends on whether the one who speaks for God also acts as his executioner, or eggs on the stoning mob when it finds a fresh victim who "should have known better".

If we can agree that abortion is different from murder, different from most crimes that involve victims (I'm certainly not afraid she'll abort ME if she goes free) and different from crime in general, in that there is no malice toward the embryonic victim, no intent to do harm, and no agreement in our culture on when human life begins. Taking axioms too far, even if they make absolute, perfect sense and the logic seems pure as the aroma of piety emanating from pro-punishment prophets of divine judgment, produces chaos in cultures that depend on freedom, differences of opinion and creative ways of channeling them into activities other than violence. When we present axioms as absolute and opposed, the mentally unbalanced can easily fall under the sway of the logic and rightness of them, and act them out in ways that undermine democracy as well as reason. We can be right, without having to witness the horrific consequences of being right with power. Just give up the power to punish, and let God judge, while showing compassion for people you believe are making the wrong decisions. Punishment is the kind of power people can't help but abuse, however right it feels to oppress a wrongdoer in the name of righteousness.

Besides, imagine late-night comedians around the globe, commenting on the trial of a fertility clinic worker, drunk on the late shift, who dropped a tray of fertilized embryos, killing them horribly. Imagine the funerals (gotta have funerals if they've been murdered). Imagine the offender's family, explaining that he feels terribly remorseful and realizes how much harm he's done to the lives of his victims, who will never again have the privelege of being selected for implantation, or kept frozen in meditative limbo, waiting for his or her turn at freedom.

Also, do identical twins share a soul?

2009-02-07T16:39:00.000-08:00

I don't know why some people keep saying we should end the drug war. Yes, it would take money out of the hands of gangs and dangerous criminals by collapsing artificially high prices. And yes, it would lead to saner regulation of all drugs, both legal and illegal, based on their health consequences rather than the political bias of the time. And it would allow us to stop pretending our current laws aren't hypocritical and dangerously misleading (I've met people who switched from smoking pot to drinking excessively because of drug testing at their job, people who thought alcohol and prescription drugs must be safer than pot because they're legal, and people who thought laws against tobacco smoking were unjust and contrary to freedom but supported the jailing of pot dealers). And a part of me does see some wisdom in shifting the emphasis of law enforcemenet to human trafficking, theft and other areas where staffing is short and funds are dry. All these I admit.

But listen: critics of Prohibition say it failed. I say the fact that it's still here, focusing on drugs other than alcohol, is really a sign of its resounding success. When it turned out people who weren't evil or dangerous (or black, or Mexican) actually enjoyed drinking and prominent prohibition advocates turned out to be beer-guzzling hypocrites, the machinery of drug repression shifted its focus from alcohol to other, less socially acceptable drugs. This had the positive side-effect of preserving the jobs of everyone employed in tracking down drinkers and their pushers. Drug wars, like all wars, require propaganda, weaponry, and a large flow of tax dollars to employ experts and footsoldiers in those fields. I say, expand the drug war and ban tobacco, with heavy penalties in proportion to the number of people who die each year from smoking. Think of the jobs it would create! That seems more efficient to me than making our enforcement officers undergo expensive training in countering human trafficking, recovering stolen property, and preventing alcohol-fueled domestic violence.

Gays get reamed in taxes

2009-01-23T19:56:00.000-08:00

Working at a tax prep office, I've had to learn how the "Defense of Marriage Act" affects the tax options of same-sex couples. Considering that sharing a household involves pretty much the same expenses and obligations that affect straight married couples, it seems unfair that they don't get the same financial breaks. Since conservatives seem to be a lot more rational when it comes to money, maybe activists should start talking about how badly gays are getting shorted dollar for dollar compared to straights who have similar living arrangements with their significant others. It can amount to thousands of dollars, not small change. The standard gay/antigay marriage argument goes something like this:

"You can't go changing the definition of marriage, it will destroy the foundations of marriage itself and civilization will collapse!"... "Why do you have to inflict your hatred on us? We just want to live our lives like you do."... "But it's just a word. Why can't you be happy with civil unions? Why does it have to be 'marriage'?"... (echoing across a vast cavern of time and space)

One protest idea: encourage gay and lesbian couples to cross-marry and share housing. A gay man can marry a lesbian woman, her wife can be officially the wife of another gay man who is married to the first gay man, all sharing living expenses and filing married jointly. Call it marriage, with a sly wink and a Ka-ching! sound. I have actually heard conservatives say that gays are allowed to marry, as long as they marry the appropriate gender, and therefore they shouldn't complain. My solution should satisfy both sides, problem solved!

Obama SWORE on a BIBLE!!!

2009-01-23T19:47:00.000-08:00

I'm absolutely shocked and dismayed that our new President would show such utter contempt for God's Word as to deliberately disobey Jesus:

Matthew 5: "But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your 'Yes' be 'Yes,' and your 'No,' 'No.' For whatever is more than these is from the evil one" (I have no idea who this site represents, but it has a good explanation of the oath prohibition in the New Testament)

From the evil one! You saw it here. Obama desecrated the Bible by swearing an oath that came direct from the mouth of Satan. Where's the outrage?

Debt Forgiveness Credits

2009-01-23T19:26:00.000-08:00

Has anyone suggested creating a debt forgiveness credit system? Might be somewhat more Christian than the status quo. Not that we're a Christian nation or anything.

"Forgive and you will be forgiven. But if you do not forgive, you will not be forgiven." The big monotheisms all specifically mention debt forgiveness in their holy books, and the perils of driving people into debt and subjecting them to recurring penalties for getting stuck. For all the superstition, prejudice and violence in the Bible and the Quran, there were probably very valid reasons for prophets to make debt a moral issue, with God's wrath reserved for the greedy and unjust, along with the polytheists, atheists, gays, adulteresses and persecutors of the flogged, crucified or beheaded faithful flock.

Credits would give legitimacy to forgiveness by making it possible to cash in credits to wipe out debt, create chains or networks to collapse debt and perhaps discover added value in relationship as a side effect. How many untried configurations might reduce frustration and stress throughout the culture, if those who owe and those who are owed were arranged less inside a hierarchical pyramid and more in an evolving network of mutual benefit? If money can be created out of nothing, why not make debt disappear into nothing? If I were an economist, I might be able to knock down that idea, but I'm not.

My own view on debt (not having any), is that near-poverty without stress is much more enjoyable than the freedom to buy what you want as soon as you want it, when it comes with strings of obligation, deadlines or penalties.

Wacky Biblical Definitions of Marriage

2008-12-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

Family Values Update: "Sponsors of the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage are seeking to nullify thousands of marriages between gay and lesbian couples performed after the state Supreme Court ruled them constitutional."

Way to defend the concept of marriage as the union of one penis and one vagina (don't get me started about intersexuals, clearly sent by Satan to screw up the system). I'm sure glad love has nothing to do with it. Jesus would be so proud...

Or would he? Let's see where consistency leads, if one defines marriage Biblically:

Matthew 5:31 "It has been said [by Moses], 'Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.' But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery."

Since secular law doesn't recognize the definition of marriage given by Jesus and it would be a hard sell in a state referendum, it will be up to the Christian community to police itself and come up with a new word for those "adulterous marriages". Matridultery? Adultrimony? Maybe they could have a contest for the best word...

Some other Biblical "definitions of marriage" that might prove troublesome for legalistic Christians:

Deuteronomy 22:28 If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay the girl's father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the girl, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives. (If she IS pledged to be married, the rapist is stoned to death, unless it happens within earshot of people and nobody hears the girl scream, in which case she is also stoned to death.)

That's Biblical justice for you... of course that's the Old Testament, which no longer counts, according to:

Ephesians 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.

So much for those Ten Commandments monuments. Lord, when will you teach your followers to read their own book? (God: "And I thought it was such a great idea to put ineffable knowledge in a book so it wouldn't get lost. Now they're trashing the meaning while going at each other's throats over the text. You know, that's uniquely human, I designed that. What? Stop looking at me that way. I'm sure there was a reason when I did it.")