Philosophy Now Forum

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:32 am If it is dangerous, then the West should simply stop to try to impose its misguided views onto other countries, no?

You have a valid point. I don't buy the idea that it's our job to invade other countries militarily to impose "democracy". That's a load of BS that needs to be flushed down the toilet, however, countries cannot help but influence each other when they interact. I see some Eastern influences in my country as well and I'm mostly fine with it. The Abrahamic religions drive me crazy sometimes and I honestly think Buddhism and Confucianism are valid ways of understanding the world also. It's not a one way street. Human cultures change each other when they meet. Right now Western society is struggling with problems of fairness and discrimination and how to create a fair society for all. It's not something we designed in order to fuck up the rest of the world. We're in the world and we influence the world as much as your side of the globe does.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:39 am Right now Western society is struggling with problems of fairness and discrimination and how to create a fair society for all.

There will never be equality of outcome.

Imagine two people who earn just $100 per year each. One person still manages to save $50, while the other goes -$50 in debt every year. Twenty years later, one person lives comfortable of his investments while the other person is homeless and destitute.

The underlying reason for inequality of outcome is not always unfairness. Sometimes it is, but I do not believe that even then the problem can actually be solved. In my opinion, there is no problem in the world that the government won't make worse.

The larger and the more omnipresent the government, the larger and the more omnipresent the scope for unfairness and discrimination. Only the government can force other people. The worst problems occur when they do so unfairly.

That is why it is so important to push back. My default position is that unless there is a really good reason not to, I seek to circumvent, neutralize, thwart, undermine and sabotage government action. In the vast majority of cases, it is simply the right thing to do.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:39 am We're in the world and we influence the world as much as your side of the globe does.

I live in SE Asia. I don't see how they try to "influence the world", really. Do you mean, with their beef noodle soup?

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:57 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:39 am Right now Western society is struggling with problems of fairness and discrimination and how to create a fair society for all.

There will never be equality of outcome.

Of course not. Serious liberal scholarship acknowledges that, however, there is still the need for fairness and equality in law and schools, so as to prevent unfair discrimination. And even determining what is "unfair or fair discrimination" and what isn't is a monumental problem. I'm sorry that our society's growing pains are matriculating out into the rest of the world. However, we live in a very diverse culture in the US and trying to get along with everyone is a difficult task but I think it's an experiment that needs to come to fruition for the sake of all of humanity.

godelian wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:57 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 5:39 am We're in the world and we influence the world as much as your side of the globe does.

I live in SE Asia. I don't see how they try to "influence the world", really. Do you mean, with their beef noodle soup?

Well, as I say the Abrahamic religions drive me crazy sometimes. Multiculturalism is a balancing act but it's something we have to contend with as the planet shrinks and people from disparate places come into contact with each other. As I say, I find Eastern culture very much understandable and valid in many ways. I've never been outside the United States except once to the Bahamas but I get a lot of exposure to other parts of the world if only through the Internet and immigrants. And I try to be as welcoming as I can to all, though, I'm prone to bone headed moments as much as anyone else is and fuck things up once in a while.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:12 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:08 pm The left is not banning books from school libraries; the right is.

Who put the perverted books in children's libraries? The Left. And the right isn't "banning" any of them. Those books aren't banned from being sold or consumed by adult perverts anywhere. They're simply not allowing the Leftist groomers to have unfettered access to vulnerable children, in a public institution funded by their taxes.

Seems right to me. Have you ever heard the phrase "age appropriate"?

In discussing things with you, IC, I feel like Onan, spilling his seed fruitlessly onto the ground.

Ban:

officially or legally prohibit:

The Florida legislature granted school boards the right to "officially and legally prohibit" certain books from being displayed in school libraries. That's called, "banning". It's getting tiresome to explain simple, everyday English to you, IC.

IN addition, your suggestion that "groomers" are "leftist" is both incorrect and obnoxious. "Perverts" and "groomers" inhabit all of the political spectrum, and, as scandal after scandal must have made you painfully aware, are often Christians and Christian preachers. Also, many of the banned books are not "perverted", and none of them allow groomers (left or right wing) "unfettered access to vulnerable children".

Here's a news recap about some of the books removed from school libraries:

James Patterson, Judy Blume, Toni Morrison, Jodi Picoult on list of 80 books one Florida school district pulled
Best-selling author James Patterson fired back on Twitter.
Jennifer Sangalang
Jodie Wagner

Treasure Coast Newspapers

In one Florida school district, libraries have removed books for sexual and racial content — some written by very familiar names.

Author James Patterson, Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison and best-selling young-adult novelist Jodi Picoult are some of the writers whose works were among more than 80 book titles removed from the Martin County School District's middle and high schools last month.

Check it out:Martin County schools remove over 80 book titles for sexual, racial content after complaints

'Maximum Ride' author James Patterson tweets: Write to DeSantis after 'absurd' removal of his YA book series.

Morrison's "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved" had been on high school shelves. But no more. Books written by Picoult — including "My Sister's Keeper," "Lone Wolf," "House Rules" and "Keeping Faith" — also were removed from high schools after objections that they were romance novels for adults, not children, according to district records.

Patterson — who had bestsellers eventually made into blockbuster movies such as "Along Came a Spider" and is known for the Alex Cross and Women's Murder Club series — took to Twitter on Monday after learning his "Maximum Ride" young-adult book series was removed from Martin County school library shelves.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:30 pm

Yes Tolerance was the watch word for Europe to escape and move on from the conflicts of the so-called Reflormation and Counter Reformation which left millions dead from religious bigotry.
However for some people Toerance was not acceptible and many found the Americas (most North as the South was Catholic land) a place wherein they could persue their religious bigotry.
The Pilgrim Fathers and other religious cults sucn as fakers, quakers, and shakers, unitarians, baptists and so on aninfinitem feld Europe to continue their bigotry.
Soon after the war of Independace the American government had to respond to religious violence by adding to the constitution the separation of church and state and to bar religion from government office.

As usual, Sculptor's anti-American screed is overblown. He mentions the millions killed in Europe: what was the figure in the U.S.? Thousands, maybe?

Pre-Revolution America was religiously diverse. Massachusetts was mainly Puritan; Virginia Anglican. Roger Williams, a 17th century preacher, was kicked out of Massachusetts for heretical views, and founded a colony in Rhode Island committed to religious tolerance and separation of Church and State (a separation unknown in England). Since the King of England was also the head of the Anglican Church, the Revolution was opposed by strict Anglicans.

The Hugenots (heretical Catholics) founded a colony in Florida 50+ years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. They sought freedom from religious persecution in Europe unsuccessfully; the Spanish soldiers tracked them down and wiped out the colony.

The Quakers (mentioned by Sculptor) suffered from religious persecution (more than practicing it). Four of them were hanged in Massachusetts in 1660 for returning to the colony after being kicked out. The Quaker enmity toward violence suggests that any bigotry they did practice was relatively benign.

The Pilgrims and Puritans fled England (and Holland) to escape religious persecution. Unfortunately, like many other oppressed groups, they were little better than their persecutors, and discriminated against other religious groups. In addition, the indigenous Indians were often reviled as non-believers, and thus little better than animals. This, perhaps, was more of a justification for treating them badly than a reason for it. Nonetheless, the religious persecution in the Americas was less dramatic than that in Europe (or in other colonies, like India).

Religious intolerance continues -- especially in the Mulsim world. But the American government set an example of separation of Church and State that most Western countries have since followed. Who was it that led the way, again?

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:08 pm Ban: etc.

Well, let's just see what your "definition" would include...

Are five year olds "banned" from owning handguns? Are eight year olds "banned" from drinking alcohol? Or is it simply a matter of "age appropriate"?

And do you have a problem if adult strangers are "banned" from grooming public school children?

IN addition, your suggestion that "groomers" are "leftist" is both incorrect and obnoxious.

These ones are. All of them.

It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:08 pm Ban: etc.

Well, let's just see what your "definition" would include...

Are five year olds "banned" from owning handguns? Are eight year olds "banned" from drinking alcohol? Or is it simply a matter of "age appropriate"?

And do you have a problem if adult strangers are "banned" from grooming public school children?

IN addition, your suggestion that "groomers" are "leftist" is both incorrect and obnoxious.

These ones are. All of them.

It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

Is there something about having left leanings that tends to make people sexually attracted to children, do you think? I wonder what the connection could be.

I'm so relieved to see you survived the fire, btw.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:22 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm

Alexiev wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2024 9:08 pm Ban: etc.

Well, let's just see what your "definition" would include...

Are five year olds "banned" from owning handguns? Are eight year olds "banned" from drinking alcohol? Or is it simply a matter of "age appropriate"?

And do you have a problem if adult strangers are "banned" from grooming public school children?

IN addition, your suggestion that "groomers" are "leftist" is both incorrect and obnoxious.

These ones are. All of them.

It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

Is there something about having left leanings that tends to make people sexually attracted to children, do you think? I wonder what the connection could be.

"Attracted"? Some, for sure.

Others have ideological motives. They actually think that (now, this is really bizarre, so brace yourself), that childhood innocence is a "bourgeois construct," and the traditional family is the "oppressive" force that perpetuates it. For these ideologues, children belong not to their parents, but to the almighty State; and parents are not to be trusted to protect their children, far less keep them innocent; rather, it's a moral duty of the State to debauch their imaginations (and bodies) as early as possible.

Or there are people like Queer Theorist David Halpern, who argue that the family prevents "intergenerational encounters" (yes, he means exactly what your darkest imagining would suggest). And the Socialist connection is particularly strong with the inheritors of the "father" of sex ed, Georgy Lukacs (See: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentar ... in-schools), whom generations of public "sex-educators" have followed -- some wittingly, and some by merely stumbling along with the crowd, probably. Some Marxists actually believe that destabilizing children is the most expeditious way of preparing a generation of "Red Guard' types and enthusiastic revolutionaries, and they praise the thought of a generation that literally "cannot tolerate living in normal society." For them, the sexual induction (grooming) of children is actually a Marxist project, as they think it will expedite the "revolution" for which they yearn. (See https://newdiscourses.com/2021/11/groom ... education/)

In any case, let's take a scenario, and use some common sense. Suppose some adult, somebody not in your family, and unknown to you, came up to your door, and said, "I'd like to read your child some books; they're sexually explicit, and full of thing that you probably haven't even considered yourself, in your wildest and most vile imagination, but I think your child is being overprotected, so in the interests of the State, I'm here to deprive her of her innocence."

What would you do?

And would it make any difference if he said to you, "Don't worry -- I'm a certified teacher"?

I'm so relieved to see you survived the fire, btw.

Thanks. Escaping the fire is what one should wish for everybody.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:53 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 4:22 pm
Is there something about having left leanings that tends to make people sexually attracted to children, do you think? I wonder what the connection could be.

"Attracted"? Some, for sure.

Others have ideological motives. They actually think that (now, this is really bizarre, so brace yourself), that childhood innocence is a "bourgeois construct," and the traditional family is the "oppressive" force that perpetuates it. For these ideologues, children belong not to their parents, but to the almighty State; and parents are not to be trusted to protect their children, far less keep them innocent; rather, it's a moral duty of the State to debauch their imaginations (and bodies) as early as possible.

Or there are people like Queer Theorist David Halpern, who argue that the family prevents "intergenerational encounters" (yes, he means exactly what your darkest imagining would suggest). And the Socialist connection is particularly strong with the inheritors of the "father" of sex ed, Georgy Lukacs (See: https://www.dharmadispatch.in/commentar ... in-schools), whom generations of public "sex-educators" have followed -- some wittingly, and some by merely stumbling along with the crowd, probably. Some Marxists actually believe that destabilizing children is the most expeditious way of preparing a generation of "Red Guard' types and enthusiastic revolutionaries, and they praise the thought of a generation that literally "cannot tolerate living in normal society." For them, the sexual induction (grooming) of children is actually a Marxist project, as they think it will expedite the "revolution" for which they yearn. (See https://newdiscourses.com/2021/11/groom ... education/)

How shocking.

In any case, let's take a scenario, and use some common sense. Suppose some adult, somebody not in your family, and unknown to you, came up to your door, and said, "I'd like to read your child some books; they're sexually explicit, and full of thing that you probably haven't even considered yourself, in your wildest and most vile imagination, but I think your child is being overprotected, so in the interests of the State, I'm here to deprive her of her innocence."

What would you do?

I would say, "be gone, you Marxist pervert".

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rimes.html

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:28 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rimes.html

Umm...you're missing the boat, Gary. We're not talking about Epstein Island, or garden variety perverts, of any political stripe. We're talking about the "educators," particularly in Florida, who have been grooming children in public schools with perverted books. And we're discussing the justification of "banning" (to use Alexiev's word) these groomers from doing that.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:57 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:28 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rimes.html

Umm...you're missing the boat, Gary. We're not talking about Epstein Island, or garden variety perverts, of any political stripe. We're talking about the "educators," particularly in Florida, who have been grooming children in public schools with perverted books. And we're discussing the justification of "banning" (to use Alexiev's word) these groomers from doing that.

I would have to read a book for myself before declaring it perverted, and I would hope that anyone else would, but I suspect that is far from being the case.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:57 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:28 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 3:35 pm It's not the right that's pushing sexually exploitive materials on impressionable children without their parents' permission. Those are groomers, and they're all Leftists.

Grim facts. But true. That's how it is.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rimes.html

Umm...you're missing the boat, Gary. We're not talking about Epstein Island, or garden variety perverts, of any political stripe. We're talking about the "educators," particularly in Florida, who have been grooming children in public schools with perverted books. And we're discussing the justification of "banning" (to use Alexiev's word) these groomers from doing that.

I see.

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 9:16 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:57 pm

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 6:28 pm

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... rimes.html

Umm...you're missing the boat, Gary. We're not talking about Epstein Island, or garden variety perverts, of any political stripe. We're talking about the "educators," particularly in Florida, who have been grooming children in public schools with perverted books. And we're discussing the justification of "banning" (to use Alexiev's word) these groomers from doing that.

I would have to read a book for myself before declaring it perverted, and I would hope that anyone else would, but I suspect that is far from being the case.

There are plenty of videos online of angry parents, at Board meetings, reading verbatim from the books that they object to being placed in their children's libraries and classrooms. If what they read is in those books (and it seems it is, because the Board members don't protest that they're lying), then I think you can satisfy yourself without the expedient of anything more.

So Alexiev's concern doesn't seem to be well-founded. What these parents are advocating for "banning," as he puts it, are clearly not only age-inappropriate but fairly vile by any reasonable account. But you can confirm that for yourself, should your genuine concern for these 'fine works of art' lead you to do so.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 10:10 pm

Harbal wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 9:16 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:57 pm
Umm...you're missing the boat, Gary. We're not talking about Epstein Island, or garden variety perverts, of any political stripe. We're talking about the "educators," particularly in Florida, who have been grooming children in public schools with perverted books. And we're discussing the justification of "banning" (to use Alexiev's word) these groomers from doing that.

I would have to read a book for myself before declaring it perverted, and I would hope that anyone else would, but I suspect that is far from being the case.

There are plenty of videos online of angry parents, at Board meetings, reading verbatim from the books that they object to being placed in their children's libraries and classrooms. If what they read is in those books (and it seems it is, because the Board members don't protest that they're lying), then I think you can satisfy yourself without the expedient of anything more.

Absolutely not. That's not negotiable; you cannot reasonably condemn a book without first reading it yourself. That is why I can't actually bring myself to outright condemn the Bible, although I do find myself criticising it quite often.